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PLAIN TALES 

FROM THE HILLS 


By RUDYARD KIPLING 


w 

Author of " Barrack Room Ballads “ Soldiers Three f 
** Phantom Rickshaw “ Mine Own People etc., etc . 


"So we loosed a bloomin' volley. 
And we made the beggar's cut .* 9 


A. L. BURT COMPANY 

NEW YORK 


PUBLISHERS 



































































































































« 



















/ 





. 



































L. t 



















c i c i 


CONTENTS. 


PAQ* 

Lispeth 1 

Three and — an Extra . 9 

Thrown Away 15 

Miss Youghal’s Sais , . . 28 

‘ ‘ Y oked with an Unbeliever ” . 37 

False Dawn . 44 

The Fescue of Pluffles 56 

Cupid’s Arrows 64 

The Three Musketeers 71 

His Chance in Life 79 

Watches of the Night 87 

The Other Man 95 

Consequences 101 

The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin 109 

The Taking of Lungtungpen 117 

A Germ Destroyer 125 

Kidnapped 132 

The Arrest of Lieutenant Golightly 139 

In the House of Suddhoo. 147 

His Wedded Wife 159 

The Broken-Link Handicap 167 

Beyond the Pale 175 

In Error 184 

A Bank Fraud 190 

Tods’ Amendment 200 

The Daughter of the Regiment 209 

In the Pride of His Youth 217 

Pig 226 

The Rout of the White Hussars 236 

Mi 


IV 


CONTENTS 


The Bronckhorst Divorce Case 

Venus Annodemini . . . ., 

The Bisara of Pooree 

The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows 

Bimi 

Namgay Doola 

Moti Guj— Mutineer 




✓ 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


LISPETH. 

Look, you have cast out Love ! What Gods are these 
You bid me please ? 

The Three in One, the One in Three ? Not so ! 

To my own Gods I go. 

It may be they shall give me greater ease 
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. 

The Convert. 

She was the daughter of Sonoo, a Hill-man, and 
Jadeh his wife. One year their maize failed, and 
two bears spent the night in their only poppy-field 
just above the Sutlej Yalley on the Kotgarh side ; 
so, next season, they turned Christian, and brought 
their baby to the Mission to be baptized. The 
Kotgarh Chaplain christened her Elizabeth, and 
“ Lispeth ” is the Hill or jpahari pronunciation. 

Later, cholera came into the Kotgarh Yalley and 
carried off Sonoo and Jadeh, and Lispeth became 
half-servant, half-companion, to the wife of the then 
Chaplain of Kotgarh. This was after the reign of 
the Moravian missionaries, but before Kotgarh had 
quite forgotten her title of “ Mistress of the North- 
ern Hills.” 


1 


2 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Whether Christianity improved Lispeth, or 
whether the gods of her own people would have 
done as much for her under any circumstances, I do 
not know ; but she grew very lovely. When a Hill 
girl grows lovely, she is worth traveling fifty miles 
over bad ground to look upon. Lispeth had a Greek 
face — one of those faces people paint so often, and 
see so seldom. She was of a pale, ivory color and, 
for her race, extremely tall. Also, she possessed eyes 
that were wonderful ; and, had she not been dressed 
in the abominable print-cloths affected by Missions, 
you would, meeting her on the hillside unexpect- 
edly, have thought her the original Diana of the 
Romans going out to slay. 

Lispeth took to Christianity readily, and did not 
abandon it when she reached womanhood, as do some 
Hill girls. Her own people hated her because she 
had, they said, become a memsahib and washed her- 
self daily ; and the Chaplain’s wife did not know 
what to do with her. Somehow, one cannot ask a 
stately goddess, five foot ten in her shoes, to clean 
plates and dishes. So she played with the Chaplain’s 
children and took classes in the Sunday School, and 
read all the books in the house, and grew more and 
more beautiful, like the Princesses in fairy tales. 
The Chaplain’s wife said that the girl ought to take 
service in Simla as a nurse or something “ genteel.” 
But Lispeth did not want to take service. She was 
very happy where she was. 

When travelers — there were not many in those 
years — came into Kotgarh, Lispeth used to lock 


LISPETH. 


3 


herself into her own room for fear they might take 
her away to Simla, or somewhere out into the un- 
known world. 

One day, a few months after she was seventeen 
years old, Lispeth went out for a walk. She did 
not walk in the manner of English ladies — a mile 
and a half out, and a ride back again. She covered 
between twenty and thirty miles in her little con- 
stitutionals, all about and about, between Kotgarh 
and Harkunda. This time she came back at full 
dusk, stepping down the break-neck descent into 
Kotgarh with something heavy in her arms. The 
Chaplain’s wife was dozing in the drawing-room 
when Lispeth came in breathing hard and very ex- 
hausted with her burden. Lispeth put it down on 
the sofa, and said simply : — “ This is my husband. 
I found him on the Bagi Load. He has hurt him- 
self. We will nurse him, and when he is well, your 
husband shall marry him to me.” 

This was the first mention Lispeth had ever made 
of her matrimonial views, and the Chaplain’s wife 
shrieked with horror. However, the man on the 
sofa needed attention first. He was a young English- 
man, and his head had been cut to the bone by some- 
thing jagged. Lispeth said she had found him down 
the khud, so she had brought him in. He was breath- 
ing queerly and was unconscious. 

He was put to bed and tended by the Chaplain, who 
knew something of medicine ; and Lispeth waited 
outside the door in case she could be useful. She 
explained to the Chaplain that this was the man she 


I 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


meant to marry ; and the Chaplain and his wifi 
lectured her severely on the impropriety of her con 
duct. Lispeth listened quietly, and repeated hei 
first proposition. It takes a great deal of Chris 
tianity to wipe out uncivilized Eastern instincts, sucl 
as falling in love at first sight. Lispeth, having 
found the man she worshiped, did not see why sh< 
should keep silent as to her choice. She had no in 
tention of being sent away, either. She was goin^ 
to nurse that Englishman until he was well enougl 
to marry her. This was her little program. 

After a fortnight of slight fever and inflammation 
the Englishman recovered coherence and thankee 
the Chaplain and his wife, and Lispeth — especially 
Lispeth — for their kindness. He was a traveler ii 
the East, he said — they never talked about “ globe 
trotters ” in those days, when the P. & O. fleet was 
young and small — and had come from Dehra Dui 
to hunt for plants and butterflies among the Simk 
hills. No one at Simla,, therefore, knew anything 
about him. He fancied he must have fallen ovei 
the cliff while stalking a fern on a rotten tree-trunk 
and that his coolies must have stolen his baggag< 
and fled. He thought he would go back to Simk 
when he was a little stronger. He desired no mor< 
mountaineering. 

He made small haste to go away, and recoverec 
his strength slowly. Lispeth objected to bein^ 
advised either by the Chaplain or his wife ; so th< 
latter spoke to the Englishman, and told him hov 
matters stood in Lispeth’s heart. He laughed i 


USPETH. 


5 


good deal, and said it was very pretty and romantic, 
a perfect idyl of the Himalayas ; but, as he was en- 
gaged to a girl at Home, he fancied that nothing 
would happen. Certainly he would behave with dis- 
cretion. He did that. Still he found it very pleasant 
to talk to Lispeth, and walk with Lispeth, and say 
nice things to her, and call her pet names while he 
was getting strong enough to go away. It meant 
nothing at all to him, and everything in the world 
to Lispeth. She was very happy while the fort- 
night lasted, because she had found a man to love. 

Being a savage by birth, she took no trouble to 
hide her feelings, and the Englishman was amused. 
When he went away, Lispeth walked with him, up 
the Hill as far as Harkunda, very troubled and very 
miserable. The Chaplain’s wife, being a good Chris- 
tian and disliking anything in the shape of fuss or 
scandal — Lispeth was beyond her management en- 
tirely — had told the Englishman to tell Lispeth that 
he was coming back to marry her. She is but a child 
you know, and, I fear, at heart a heathen,” said the 
Chaplain’s wife. So all the twelve miles up the hill 
the Englishman, with his arm around Lispeth’s waist, 
was assuring the girl that he would come back and 
marry her ; and Lispeth made him promise over and 
over again. She wept on the Harkunda Ridge till 
he had passed out of sight along the Muttiani path. 

Then she dried her tears and went in to Kotgarb 
again, and said to the Chaplain’s wife : “ He will 
come back and marry me. He has gone to his own 
people to tell them so.” And the Chaplain’s wife 


6 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


soothed Lispeth and said : “ He will come back.” 
At the end of two months, Lispeth grew impatient, 
and was told that the Englishman had gone over 
the seas to England. She knew where England 
was, because she had read little geography primers ; 
but, of course, she had no conception of the nature 
of the sea, being a Hill girl. There was an old puz- 
zle-map of the World in the house. Lispeth had 
played with it when she was a child. She unearthed 
it again, and put it together of evenings, and cried 
to herself, and tried to imagine where her English- 
man was. As she had no ideas of distance or steam- 
boats, her notions were somewhat erroneous. It 
would not have made the least difference had she 
been perfectly correct ; for the Englishman had no 
intention of coming back to marry a Hill girl. He 
forgot all about her by the time he was butterfly, 
hunting in Assam. He wrote a book on the East 
afterwards. Lispeth’s name did not appear. 

At the end of three months, Lispeth made daily 
pilgrimages to Harkunda to see if her Englishman 
was coming along the road. It gave her comfort, 
and the Chaplain’s wife finding her happier thought 
that she was getting over her “ barbarous and most 
indelicate folly.” A little later the walks ceased to 
help Lispeth and her temper grew very bad. The 
Chaplain’s wife thought this a profitable time to let 
her know the real state of affairs — that the English- 
man had only promised his love to keep her quiet 
— that he had never meant anything, and that it 
was “ wrong and improper ” of Lispeth to think of 


LISPETH. 


7 


marriage with an Englishman, who was of a supe- 
rior clay, besides being promised in marriage to a girl 
of his own people. Lispeth said that all this was 
clearly impossible because he had said he loved her, 
and the Chaplain’s wife had, with her own lips, 
asserted that the Englishman was coming back. 

“How can what he and you said be untrue? ” t 
asked Lispeth. 

“We said it as an excuse to keep you quiet, child,” 
said the Chaplain’s wife. 

“ Then you have lied to me,” said Lispeth, “ you 
and he ” 

The Chaplain’s wife bowed her head, and said 
nothing. Lispeth was silent, too, for a little time ; 
then she went out down the valley, and returned in 
the dress of a Hill girl — infamously dirty, but with- 
out the nose and earrings. She had her hair braided 
into the long pig-tail, helped out with black thread, 
that Hill women wear. 

“ I am going back to my own people,” said she. 
“ You have killed Lispeth. There is only left old 
Jadeh’s daughter — the daughter of a jpahari and the 
servant of Tarfca Devi. You are all liars, you Eng- 
lish.” 

By the time that the Chaplain’s wife had recovered 
from the shock of the announcement that Lispeth 
had ’verted to her mother’s gods, the girl had gone ; 
and she never came back. 

She took to her own unclean people savagely, as 
if to make up the arrears of the life she had stepped 
out of ; and, in a little time, she married a wood- 


8 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


cutter who beat her, after the manner of pahwriS) 
and her beauty faded soon. 

u There is no law whereby you can account for 
the vagaries of the heathen/’ said the Chaplain’s 
wife, “and I believe that Lispeth was always at 
heart an infidel.” Seeing she had been taken into 
the Church of England at the mature age of five 
weeks, this statement does not do credit to the Chap- 
lain’s wife. 

Lispeth was a very old woman when she died. 
She always had a perfect command of English, and 
when she was sufficiently drunk, could sometimes 
be induced to tell the story of her first love-affair. 

It was hard then to realize that the bleared, 
wrinkled creature, so like a wisp of charred rag, 
could ever have been “ Lispeth of the Kotgarh Mis- 
won.” 


THREE AND — AN EXTRA. 


9 


THREE A HD— AH EXTRA, 


44 When halter and heel ropes are slipped, do not give chase 
with sticks but with gram 

Punjabi Proverb . 

After marriage arrives a reaction, sometimes a 
big, sometimes a little one ; but it comes sooner or 
later, and must be tided over by both parties if they 
desire the rest of their lives to go with the current. 

In the case of the Cusack-Bremmils this reaction 
did not set in till the third year after the wedding. 
Bremmil was hard to hold at the best of times; 
but he was a beautiful husband until the baby died 
and Mrs. Bremmil wore black, and grew thin, and 
mourned as if the bottom of the Universe had fallen 
out. Perhaps Bremmil ought to have comforted 
her. He tried to do so, I think ; but the more he 
comforted the more Mrs. Bremmil grieved, and, 
consequently, the more uncomfortable Bremmil 
grew. The fact was that they both needed a tonic. 
And they got it, Mrs. Bremmil can afford to laugh 
now, but it was no laughing matter to her at the 
time. 

You see, Mrs. Hauksbee appeared on the horizon ; 
and where she existed was fair chance of trouble. 
At Simla her by-name was the “Stormy Petrel.” 
She had won that title five times to my own certain 


10 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

knowledge. She was a little, brown, thin, almost 
skinny, woman, with big, rolling, violet-blue eyes, 
and the sweetest manners in the world. You had 
only to mention her name at afternoon teas for every 
woman in the room to rise up, and call her — well — 
not — blessed. She was clever, witty, brilliant, and 
sparkling bej^ond most of her kind ; but possessed 
of many devils of malice and mischievousness. She 
could be nice, though, even to her own sex. But 
that is another story. 

Bremmil went off at score after the baby’s death 
and the general discomfort that followed, and Mrs. 
Hauksbee annexed him. She took no pleasure in 
hiding her captives. She annexed him publicly, 
and saw that the public saw it. He rode with her, 
and walked with her, and talked with her, and 
picnicked with her, and tiffined at Peliti’s with her, 
till people put up their eyebrows and said : “ Shock- 
ing ! ” Mrs. Bremmil stayed at home turning over 
the dead baby’s frocks and crying into the empty 
cradle, She did not care to do anything else. But 
some eight dear, affectionate lady-friends explained 
the situation at length to her in case she should miss 
the cream of it. Mrs. Bremmil listened quietly, 
and thanked them for their good offices. She was 
not as clever as Mrs. Hauksbee, but she was no 
fool. She kept her own counsel, and did not speak 
to Bremmil of what she had heard. This is worth 
remembering. Speaking to, or crying over, a hus- 
band never did any good yet. 

When Bremmil was at home, which was not often, 


THREE AND— AN EXTRA. 


11 


he was more affectionate than usual; and that 
showed his hand. The affection was forced partly 
to soothe his own conscience and partly to soothe 
Mrs. Bremmil. It failed in both regards. 

Then “ the A.-D.-C. in Waiting was commanded 
by Their Excellencies, Lord and Lady Lytton, to 
invite Mr. and Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil to Peterhoff 
on July 26th at 9-30 P.M.” — “ Dancing ” in the 
bottom-left-hand corner. 

“ I can’t go,” said Mrs. Bremmil, “it is too soon 
after poor little Florrie .... but it need not stop 
you, Tom.” 

She meant what she said then, and Bremmil said 
that he would go just to put in an appearance. 
Here he spoke the thing which was not ; and Mrs. 
Bremmil knew it. She guessed — a woman’s guess 
is much more accurate than a man’s certainty — that 
he had meant to go from the first, and with Mrs. 
Hauksbee. She sat down to think, and the outcome 
of her thoughts was that the memory of a dead 
child was worth considerably less than the affections 
of a living husband. She made her plan and staked 
her all upon it. In that hour she discovered that 
>sheknew Tom Bremmil thoroughly, and this knowl- 
edge she acted on. 

Tom,” said she, “I shall be dining out at the 
Longmores’ on the evening of the 26th. You’d 
better dine at the Club.” 

This saved Bremmil from making an excuse to get 
away and dine with Mrs. Hauksbee, so he was grate* 
ful, and felt small and mean at the same time— 


12 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


which was wholesome. Bremmil left the house at 
five for a ride. About half-past five in the evening 
a large leather-covered basket came in from Phelps’ 
for Mrs. Bremmil. She was a woman who knew 
how to dress ; and she had not spent a week on de- 
signing that dress and having it gored, and hemmed, 
and herring-boned, and tucked and rucked (or what- 
ever the terms are) for nothing. It was a gorgeous 
dress — slight mourning. I can’t describe it, but it 
was what The Queen calls “ a creation a thing 
that hit you straight between the eyes and made 
you gasp. She had not much heart for what she 
was going to do ; but as she glanced at the long 
mirror she had the satisfaction of knowing that she 
had never looked so well in her life. She was a 
large blonde and, when she chose, carried herself 
superbly. 

After the dinner at the Longmores, she went on 
to the dance — a little late — and encountered Brem- 
mil with Mrs. Hauksbee on his arm. That made 
her flush, and as the men crowded round her for 
dances she looked magnificent. She filled up all 
her dances except three, and those she left blank. 
Mrs. Hauksbee caught her eye once ; and she knew 
it was war — real war — between them. She started 
handicapped in the struggle, for she had ordered 
Bremmil about just the least little bit in the world 
too much; and he was beginning to resent it. 
Moreover, he had never seen his wife look so lovely. 
He stared at her from doorways, and glared at her 
from passages as she went about with her partners ; 


THREE AND — AN EXTRA. 


13 


and the more he stared, the more taken was he. 
He could scarcely believe that this was the woman 
with the red eyes and the black stuff gown who 
used to weep over the eggs at breakfast. 

Mrs. Hauksbee did her best to hold him in play, 
but, after two dances, he crossed over to his wife 
and asked for a dance. 

“ I’m afraid you’ve come too late, Mister Brem 
mil,” she said with her eyes twinkling. 

Then he begged her to give him a dance, and, as 
a great favor, she allowed him the fifth waltz. 
Luckily 5 stood vacant on his program. They 
danced it together, and there was a little flutter 
round the room. Bremmil had a sort of a notion 
that his wife could dance, but he never knew she 
danced so divinely. At the end of that waltz he 
asked for another — as a favor, not as a right ; and 
Mrs. Bremmil said : “ Show me your program, 
dear ! ” He showed it as a naughty little schoolboy 
hands up contraband sweets to a master. There 
was a fair sprinkling of “ H ” on it besides “ H ” at 
supper. Mrs. Bremmil said nothing, but she smiled 
contemptuously, ran her pencil through 7 and 9 — 
two “ H’s ” — and returned the card with her own 
name written above — a pet name that only she and 
her husband used. Then she shook her finger 
at him, and said, laughing: “Oh, you silly, silly 
boy ! ” 

Mrs. Hauksbee heard that, and — she owned as 
much — felt she had the worst of it. Bremmil ac- 
cepted 7 and 9 gratefully. They danced 7, and sat 


14 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE BILLS. 


out 9 in one of the little tents. What Bremmil said 
and what Mrs. Bremmil did is no concern of any 
one’s. 

When the band struck up “ The Boast Beef of Old 
England,” the two went out into the veranda, and 
Bremmil began looking for his wife’s dandy (this 
was before ’rickshaw days) while she went into the 
cloak-room. Mrs. Hauksbee came up and said: 
u You take me in to supper, I think, Mr. Bremmil ! ” 
Bremmil turned red and looked foolish : “ Ah — 
h’m ! I’m going home with my wife, Mrs. Hauks- 
bee. I think there has been a little mistake.” Being 
a man, he spoke as though Mrs. Hauksbee were 
entirely responsible. 

Mrs. Bremmil came out of the cloak-room in a 
swansdown cloak with a white “ cloud ” round her 
head. She looked radiant ; and she had a right to. 

The couple went off into the darkness together, 
Bremmil riding very close to the dandy. 

Then says Mrs. Hauksbee to me — she looked a 
trifle faded and jaded in the lamplight : “ Take 
my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a 
clever man ; but it needs a very clever woman to 
manage a fool.” 

Then we went in to supper. 


THROWN AWAY. 


15 


THBOWN AWAY. 

u And some are sulky, while some will plunge ; 

[So ho ! Steady ! Stand still , you /] 

Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge. 

[There ! There l Who wants to kill you ?] 

Some — there are losses in every trade — 

Will break their hearts ere bitted and made, 

Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard, 

And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard.” 

Toolungala Stockyard Chorus. 

To rear a boy under what parents call the “ shel- 
tered life system ” is, if the boy must go into the 
world and fend for himself, not wise. Unless he be 
one in a thousand he has certainly to pass through 
many unnecessary troubles; and may, possibly, 
come to extreme grief simply from ignorance of the 
proper proportions of things. 

Let a puppy eat the soap in the bath-room or chew 
a newly-blacked boot. He chews and chuckles 
until, by and by, he finds out that blacking and Old 
Brown Windsor make him very sick ; so he argues 
that soap and boots are not w r holesome. Any old 
dog about the house will soon show him the un- 
wisdom of biting big dogs’ ears. Being young, he 
remembers and goes abroad, at six months, a well- 
mannered little beast with a chastened appetite. If 
he had been kept away from boots, and soap, and 


16 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


big dogs till he came to the trinity full-grown and 
with developed teeth, just consider how fearfully 
sick and thrashed he would be ! Apply that motion 
to the “ sheltered life,” and see how it works. It 
does not sound pretty, but it is the better of two 
evils. 

There was a Boy once who had been brought up 
under the u sheltered life ” theory ; and the theory 
killed him dead. He stayed with his people all his 
days, from the hour he was born till the hour he 
went into Sandhurst nearly at the top of the list. 
He was beautifully taught in all that wins marks 
by a private tutor, and carried the extra weight of 
“ never having given his parents an hour’s anxiety 
in his life.” What he learnt at Sandhurst beyond 
the regular routine is of no great consequence. He 
looked about him, and he found soap and blacking, 
so to speak, very good. He ate a little, and came 
out of Sandhurst not so high as he went in. Then 
there was an interval and a scene with his people, 
who expected much from him. Hext a year of liv- 
ing “ unspotted from the world” in a third-rate 
depot battalion where all the juniors were children, 
and all the seniors old women ; and lastly he came 
out to India where he was cut off from the support 
of his parents, and had no one to fall back on in 
time of trouble except himself. 

How India is a place beyond all others where one 
must not take things too seriously — the midday sun 
always excepted. Too much work and too much 
energy kill a man just as effectively as too milch as- 


THROWN AWAY. 


IT 


sorted vice or too much drink. Flirtation does not 
matter, because every one is being transferred and 
either you or she leave the Station, and never re- 
turn. Good work does not matter, because a man is 
judged by his worst output and another man takes 
all the credit of his best as a rule. Bad work does 
not matter, because other men do worse and incom- 
petents hang on longer in India than anywhere else. 
Amusements do not matter, because you must re- 
peat them as soon as you have accomplished them 
once, and most amusements only mean trying to win 
another person’s money. Sickness does not matter, 
because it’s all in the day’s work, and if you die an- 
other man takes over your place and your office in 
the eight hours between death and burial. Noth- 
ing matters except Home-furlough and acting allow- 
ances, and these only because they are scarce. This 
is a slack, Icutcha country where all men work with 
imperfect instruments ; and the wisest thing is to 
take no one and nothing in earnest, but to escape as 
soon as ever you can to some place where amuse- 
ment is amusement and a reputation worth the 
having. 

But this Boy — the tale is as old as the Hills — 
came out, and took all things seriously. He was 
pretty and was petted. He took the pettings seri- 
ously, and fretted over women not worth saddling 
a pony to call upon. He found his new free life in 
India very good. It does look attractive in the be- 
ginning, from a Subaltern’s point of view — all ponies, 
partners, dancing, and so on. He tasted it as the 

33 


18 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


puppy tastes the soap. Only he came late to the 
eating, with a growing set of teeth. He had no 
sense of balance — just like the puppy — and could 
not understand why he was not treated with the 
consideration he received under his father’s roof. 
This hurt his feelings. 

He quarreled with other boys and, being sensi- 
tive to the marrow, remembered these quarrels, and 
they excited him. He found whist, and gymkhanas, 
and things of that kind (meant to amuse one after 
office) good ; but he took them seriously too, just as 
he took the “ head ” that followed after drink. He 
lost his money over whist and gymkhanas because 
they were new to him. 

He took his losses seriously, and wasted as much 
energy and interest over a two-goldmohur race for 
maiden ekka - ponies with their manes hogged, as if 
it had been the Derby. One half of this came from 
inexperience — much as the puppy squabbles with 
the corner of the hearthrug — and the other half 
from the dizziness bred by stumbling out of his quiet 
life into the glare and excitement of a livelier one. 
Ho one told him about the soap and the blacking, 
because an average man takes it for granted that an 
average man is ordinarily careful in regard to them. 
It was pitiful to watch The Boy knocking himself 
to pieces, as an over-handled colt falls down and 
cuts himself when he gets away from the groom. 

This unbridled license in amusements not worth 
the trouble of breaking line for, much less rioting 
over, endured for six months — all through one cold 


THROWN AWAY. 


19 


weather — and then we thought that the heat and 
the knowledge of having lost his money and health 
and lamed his horses would sober The Boy down, 
and he would stand steady. In ninety-nine cases 
out of a hundred this would have happened. You 
can see the principle working in any Indian Station. 
But this particular case fell through because The 
Boy was sensitive and took things seriously — as I 
may have said some seven times before. Of course, 
we couldn’t tell how his excesses struck him per- 
sonally. They were nothing very heart-breaking 
or above the average. He might be crippled for 
life financially, and want a little nursing. Still the 
memory of his performances would wither away in 
one hot weather, and the shroff would help him to 
tide over the money-troubles. But he must have 
taken another view altogether and have believed 
himself ruined beyond redemption. His Colonel 
talked to him severely when the cold weather ended. 
That made him more wretched than ever ; and it 
was only an ordinary “ Colonel’s wigging ! ” 

What follows is a curious instance of the fashion 
in w r hich we are all linked together and made re- 
sponsible for one another. The thing that kicked 
the beam in The Boy’s mind was a remark that a 
woman made when he was talking to her. There 
is no use in repeating it, for it was only a cruel lit- 
tle sentence, rapped out before thinking, that made 
him flush to the roots of his hair. He kept himself 
to himself for three days, and then put in for two 
days’ leave to go shooting near a Canal Engineer’s 


20 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Best House about thirty miles out. He got his 
leave, and that night at Mess was noisier and more 
offensive than ever. He said that he was “ going 
to shoot big game,” and left at half-past ten o’clock 
in an ekka. Partridge — which was the only thing 
a man could get near the Rest House — is not big 
game ; so every one laughed. 

Next morning one of the Majors came in from 
short leave, and heard that The Boy had gone out 
to shoot “ big game.” The Major had taken an in- 
terest in The Boy, and had, more than once, tried 
to check him in the cold weather. The Major put 
up his eyebrows when he heard of the expe- 
dition and went to The Boy’s rooms, where he 
rummaged. 

Presently he came out and found me leaving 
cards on the Mess. There was no one else in the 
ante-room. 

He said: “The Boy has gone out shooting. 
Does a man shoot tetur with a revolver and a writ- 
ing-case ! ” 

I said : “ Nonsense, Major 1 ” for I saw what was 
in his mind. 

He said : “ Nonsense or no nonsense, I’m going 
to the Canal now — at once. I don’t feel easy.” 

Then he thought for a minute, and said ; “ Can 
you lie ? ” 

“ You know best,” I answered. “ It’s my pro* 
fession.” 

“ Yery well,” said the Major; “you must come 
out with me now— at once— in an elcka to the Cana] 


THROWN AWAY. 21 

to shoot black-buck. Go and put on shirkwr- kit — 
quick — and drive here with a gun.” 

The Major was a masterful man ; and I knew that 
he would not give orders for nothing. So I obeyed, 
and on return found the Major packed up in an 
ekka — gun-cases and food slung below — all ready for 
a shooting-trip. 

He dismissed the driver and drove himself. We 
jogged along quietly while in the station ; but as 
soon as we got to the dusty road across the plains, 
he made that pony fly. A country-bred can do 
nearly anything at a pinch. We covered the thirty 
miles in under three hours, but the poor brute was 
nearly dead. 

Once I said : — “ What’s the blazing hurry, 
Major ? ” 

He said, quietly : “ The Boy has been alone, by 
himself for — one, two, five, — fourteen hours now ! 
I tell you, I don’t feel easy.” 

This uneasiness spread itself to me, and I helped 
to beat the pony. 

When we came to the Canal Engineer’s Best 
House the Major called for The Boy’s servant ; but 
there was no answer. Then we went up to the 
house, calling for The Boy by name ; but there was 
no answer. 

“ Oh, he’s out shooting,” said I. 

Just then I saw through one of the windows a 
little hurricane-lamp burning. This was at four in 
the afternoon. We both stopped dead in the ver- 
anda, holding our breath to catch every sound; 


22 


.PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and we heard, inside the room, the “ brr — brr — brr ™ 
of a multitude of flies. The Major said nothing, but 
he took off ids helmet and we entered very softly. 

The Boy was dead on the charboy in the center of 
the bare, lime- washed room. He had shot his head 
nearly to pieces with his revolver. The gun-cases 
were still strapped, so was the bedding, and on the 
table lay The Boy’s writing-case with photographs. 
He had gone away to die like a poisoned rat ! 

The Major said to himself softly : — “ Poor Boy ! 
Poor, poor devil ! ” Then he turned away from the 
oed and said: — “I want your help in this busi- 
ness.” 

Knowing The Boy was dead by his own hand, I 
saw exactly what that help would be, so I passed 
over to the table, took a chair, lit a cheroot, and 
began to go through the writing-case ; the Major 
looking over my shoulder and repeating to himself: 
“We came too late!— Like a rat in a hole ! — Poor, 
poor devil ! ” 

The Boy must have spent half the night in writ- 
ing to his people, and to his Colonel, and to a girl 
at Home ; and as soon as he had finished, must have 
shot himself, for he had been dead a long time when 
we came in. 

I read all that he had written, and passed over 
each sheet to the Major as I finished it. 

We saw from his accounts how very seriously he 
had taken everything. He wrote about “ disgrace 
which he was unable to bear ” — “ indelible shame 
“ criminal folly “ wasted life,” and so on ; besides a 


THROWN AWAY. 


23 


lot of private things to his Father and Mother much 
too sacred to put into print. The letter to the girl at 
Home was the most pitiful of all : and I choked as 
I read it. The Major made no attempt to keep dry- 
eyed. I respected him for that. He read and rocked 
himself to and fro, and simply cried like a woman 
without caring to hide it. The letters were so dreary 
and hopeless and touching. We forgot all about The 
Boy’s follies, and only thought of the poor Thing on 
the charpoy and the scrawled sheets in our hands. 
It was utterly impossible to let the letters go Home. 
They would have broken his Father’s heart and killed 
his Mother after killing her belief in her son. 

At last the Major dried his eyes openly, and said : 
— “ Nice sort of thing to spring on an English 
family ! What shall we do % ” 

I said, knowing what the Major had brought me 
out for : — “ The Boy died of cholera. We were with 
him at the time. We can’t commit ourselves to 
half-measures. Come along.” 

Then began one of the most grimly comic scenes I 
have ever taken part in — the concoction of a big, writ- 
ten lie, bolstered with evidence, to soothe The Boy’s 
people at home. I began the rough draft of the letter, 
the Major throwing in hints here and there while he 
gathered up all the stuff that The Boy had written 
and burnt it in the fireplace. It was a hot, still 
evening when we began, and the lamp burned very 
badly. In due course I got the draft to my satis- 
faction, setting forth how The Boy was the pattern 
of all virtues, beloved by his regiment, with every 


24 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


promise of a great career before him, and so on ; how 
we had helped him through the sickness — it was no 
time for little lies you will understand — and how he 
had died without pain. I choked while I was put- 
ting down these things and thinking of the poor 
people who would read them. Then I laughed at 
the grotesqueness of the affair, and the laughter 
mixed itself up with the choke — and the Major said 
that we both wanted drinks. 

I am afraid to say how much whisky we drank 
before the letter was finished. It had not the least 
effect on us. Then we took off The Boy’s watch 
locket, and rings. 

Lastly, the Major said : — “ We must send a lock of 
hair too. A woman values that.” 

But there were reasons why we could not find a 
lock fit to send. The Boy was black-haired, and so 
was the Major, luckily. I cut off a piece of the 
Major’s hair above the temple with a knife, and put 
it into the packet we were making. The laughing- 
fit and the chokes got hold of me again, and 1 had 
to stop. The Major was nearly as bad ; and we both 
knew that the worst part of the work was to come. 

We sealed up the packet, photographs, locket, seals, 
ring, letter, and lock of hair with The Boy’s sealing- 
wax and The Boy’s seal. 

Then the Major said : — “ For God’s sake let’s get 
outside — away from the room — and think ! ” 

We went outside, and walked on the banks of the 
Canal for an hour, eating and drinking what we had 
with us, until the moon rose. I know now exactly 


THROW AWAY. 


25 


how a murderer feels. Finally, we forced ourselves 
back to the room with the lamp and the Other 
Thing in it, and began to take up the next piece of 
work. I am not going to write about this. It was 
too horrible. We burned the bedstead and dropped 
the ashes into the Canal ; we took up the matting 
of the room and treated that in the same way. I 
went off to a village and borrowed two big hoes,— 
I did not want the villagers to help, — while the 

Major arranged the other matters. It took us 

four hours’ hard work to make the grave. As we 
worked, we argued out whether it was right to say 
as much as we remembered of the Burial of the 
Dead. We compromised things by saying the 
Lord’s Prayer with a private unofficial prayer for 
the peace of the soul of The Boy. Then we filled 
in the grave and went into the veranda — not the 
house — to lie down to sleep. We were dead-tired. 

When we woke the Major said, wearily : — “ We 
can’t go back till to-morrow. We must give him a 
decent time to die in. He died early this morning, 
remember. That seems more natural.” So the 
Major must have been lying awake all the time, 
thinking. 

I said: — “Then why didn’t we bring the body 
back to cantonments ? ” 

The Major thought for a minute : — “ Because the 
people bolted when they heard of the cholera. And 
the ehha has gone ! ” 

That was strictly true. We had forgotten all 
about the ^M»-pony, and he had gone home. 


26 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

So, we were left there alone, all that stifling day, 
in the Canal Rest House, testing and re-testing our 
story of The Boy’s death to see if it was weak in 
any point. A native turned up in the afternoon, 
but we said that a Sahib was dead of cholera, and 
he ran away. As the dusk gathered, the Major 
told me all his fears about The Boy, and awful 
stories of suicide or nearly-carried-out suicide — tales 
that made one’s hair crisp. He said that he himself 
had once gone into the same Yalley of the Shadow 
as The Boy, when he was young and new to the 
country; so he understood how things fought to- 
gether in The Boy’s poor jumbled head. He also 
said that youngsters, in their repentant moments, 
consider their sins much more serious and inefface- 
able than they really are. We talked together all 
through the evening and rehearsed the story of the 
death of The Boy. * As soon as the moon was up, 
and The Boy, theoretically, just buried, we struck 
across country for the Station. We walked from 
eight till six o’clock in the morning; but though 
we were dead-tired, we did not forget to go to The 
Boy’s rooms and put away his revolver with the 
proper amount of cartridges in the pouch. Also to 
set his writing-case on the table. We found the 
Colonel and reported the death, feeling more like 
murderers than ever. Then we went to bed and 
slept the clock round ; for there was no more in us. 

The tale had credence as long as was necessary, 
for every one forgot about The Boy before a fort- 
night was over. Many people, however, found time 


THROWN AWAY. 


27 


to say that the Major had behaved scandalously in 
not bringing in the body for a regimental funeral. 
The saddest thing of all was the letter from The 
Boy’s mother to the Major and me — with big* inky 
blisters all over the sheet. She wrote the sweetest 
possible things about our great kindness, and the 
obligation she would be under to us as long as she 
lived. 

All things considered, she was under an oblige 
tion ; but not exactly as she meant. 


28 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


MISS YOUGHAL’S SAIS. 

When Man and Woman are agreed, what can the Kazi do? 

Mcihomedan Proverb . 

Some people say that there is no romance in India. 
Those people are wrong. Onr lives hold quite as 
much romance as is good for us. Sometimes more. 

Strickland was in the Police, and people did not 
understand him ; so they said he was a doubtful 
sort of a man and passed by on the other side. 
Strickland had himself to thank for this. He held 
the extraordinary theory that a Policeman in India 
should try to know as much about the natives as the 
natives themselves. Now, in the whole of Upper 
India, there is only one man who can pass for Hindu 
or Mahomedan, chamar or faquir , as he pleases. 
He is feared and respected by the natives from the 
Ghor Kathri to the Jamma Musjid ; and he is sup- 
posed to have the gift of invisibility and executive 
control over many Devils. But what good has this 
done him with the Government? None in the 
world. He has never got Simla for his charge ; and 
his name is almost unknown to Englishmen. 

Strickland was foolish enough to take that man 
for his model ; and, following out his absurd theory, 
dabbled in unsavory places no respectable man 
would think of exploring — all among the native 


MISS youghal’s sais. 


29 


nff-raff. He educated himself in this peculiar way 
for seven years, and people could not appreciate it. 
He was perpetually “ going Fantee ” among natives, 
which, of course, no man with any sense believes 
in. He was initiated into the Sat Bhai at Allahabad 
once, when he was on leave ; he knew the Lizard- 
Song of the Sansis, and the Hdlli-Hukk dance, which 
is a religious can-can of a startling kind. When a 
man knows who dances the Hdlli-HuhJc , and how, 
and when, and where, he knows something to be 
proud of. He has gone deeper than the skin. But 
Strickland was not proud, though he had helped 
once, at Jagadhri, at the Painting of the Death. 
Bull, which no Englishman must even look upon ; 
had mastered the thieves’-patter of the changars ; 
had taken a Eusufzai horse-thief alone near Attock ; 
and had stood under the mimbar-hoaxdi of a Border 
mosque and conducted service in the manner of a 
Sunni Mollah. 

His crowning achievement was spending eleven 
days as a faquir in the gardens of Baba Atal at 
Amritsar, and there picking up the threads of the 
great Hasiban Murder Case. But people said, justly 
enough : — “ Why on earth can't Strickland sit in his 
office and write up his diary, and recruit, and keep 
quiet, instead of showing up the incapacity of his 
seniors ? ” So the Hasiban Murder Case did him 
no good departmentally ; but, after his first feeling 
of wrath, he returned to his outlandish custom of 
prying into native life. By the way, when a man 
once acquires a taste for this particular amusement, 


SO PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

it abides with him all his days. It is the most 
fascinating thing in the world ; Love not excepted. 
Where other men took ten days to the Hills, Strick- 
land took leave for what he called shikar , put on 
the disguise that appealed to him at the time, 
stepped down into the brown crowd, and was swal- 
lowed up for a while. He was a quiet, dark young 
fellow — spare, black eyes — and, when he was not 
thinking of something else, a very interesting com- 
panion. Strickland on Native Progress as he had 
seen it was worth hearing. Natives hated S trick* 
land ; but they were afraid of him. He knew too 
much. 

When the Youghals came into the station, Strick- 
land — very gravely, as he did everything — fell in 
love with Miss Youghal ; and she, after a while, fell 
in love with him because she could not understand 
him. Then Strickland told the parents ; but Mrs. 
Youghal said she was not going to throw her 
daughter into the worst paid Department in the 
Empire, and old Youghal said, in so many words, 
that he mistrusted Strickland’s ways and works, 
and would thank him not to speak or write to his 
daughter any more. “ Yery well,” said Strickland, 
for he did not wish to make his lady-love’s life a 
burden. After one long talk with Miss Youghal he 
dropped the business entirely. 

The Youghals went up to Simla in April. 

In July, Strickland secured three months’ leave 
on “ urgent private affairs.” He locked up his 
bouse — though not a native in the Province would 


MISS youghal’s sais. 


31 


wittingly have touched “ Estreekin Sahib’s ” gear 
for the world — and went down to see a friend of 
his, an old dyer, at Tarn Taran. 

Here all trace of him was lost, until a sais met 
me on the Simla Mall with this extraordinary 
note : — 

“ Dear old man , 

“ Please give bearer a box of cheeroots— 
Supers , JVo. 1, for preference. They are freshest at 
the Club. I'll repay when I reappear ; but at present 
Tm out of Society . 

“ Yours , 

“ E. Strickland.” 

I ordered two boxes, and handed them over to 
the sais with my love. That sais was Strickland, 
and he was in old Youghal’s employ, attached to 
Miss Youghal’s Arab. The poor fellow was suffer- 
ing for an English smoke, and knew that whatever 
happened I should hold my tongue till the business 
was over. 

Later on, Mrs. Youghal, who was wrapped up in 
her servants, began talking at houses where she 
called of her paragon among smses — the man who 
was never too busy to get up in the morning and 
pick flowers for the breakfast-table, and who 
blacked — actually blacked — the hoofs of his horse 
like a London coachman! The turnout of Miss 
Youghal’s Arab was a wonder and a delight. 
Strickland — Dulloo, I mean— found his reward in 


32 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS, 


the pretty things that Miss Youghal said to him 
when she went out riding. Her parents were pleased 
to find she had forgotten all her foolishness for 
young Strickland and said she was a good girl. 

Strickland vows that the two months of his 
service were the most rigid mental discipline he has 
ever gone through. Quite apart from the little fact 
that the wife of one of his fellow saises fell in love 
with him and then tried to poison him with arsenic 
because he would have nothing to do with her, he 
had to school himself into keeping quiet when Miss 
Youghal went out riding with some man who tried 
to flirt with her, and he was forced to trot behind 
carrying the blanket and hearing every word l 
Also, he had to keep his temper when he was 
slanged in “ Benmore ” porch by a policeman — es- 
pecially once when he was abused by a Naik he had 
himself recruited from Isser Jang village — or, worse 
still, when a young subaltern called him a pig for 
not making way quickly enough. 

But the life had its compensations. He obtained 
great insight into the ways and thefts of saises — 
enough, he says, to have summarily convicted half 
the chavna/f * population of the Punjab if he had been 
on business. He became one of the leading players 
at knuckle-bones, which all jhampdnis and many 
saises play while they are waiting outside the Gov- 
ernment House or the Gaiety Theater of nights ; he 
learned to smoke tobacco that was three-fourths 
cowdung ; and he heard the wisdom of the grizzled 
Jemadar of the Government House saises, whose 


MISS youghal’s sais. 


83 


words are valuable. He saw many things which 
amused him ; and he states, on honor, that no man 
can appreciate Simla properly, till he has seen it 
from the swis's point of view. He also says that, if 
he chose to write all he saw, his head would be 
broken in several places. 

Strickland’s account of the agony he endured on 
wet nights, hearing the music and seeing the lights 
in “ Benmore,” with his toes tingling for a waltz 
and his head in a horse-blanket, is rather amusing. 
One of these days, Strickland is going to write a 
little book on his experiences. That book will be 
worth buying ; and even more worth suppressing. 

Thus, he served faithfully as Jacob served for 
Rachel ; and his leave was nearly at an end when 
the explosion came. He had really done his best 
to keep his temper in the hearing of the flirtations 
I have mentioned ; but he broke down at last. An 
old and very distinguished General took Miss Tou- 
gh al for a ride, and began that specially offensive 
“you’re-only-a-little-girl” sort of flirtation — most 
difficult for a woman to turn aside deftly, and most 
maddening to listen to. Miss Youghal was shaking 
with fear at the things he said in the hearing of her 
sais. Dulloo — Strickland — stood it as long as he 
could. Then he caught hold of the General’s bridle, 
and, in most fluent English, invited him to step off 
and be heaved over the cliff. Next minute, Miss 
Youghal began crying ; and Strickland saw that he 
had hopelessly given himself away, and everything 
was over, 

9 


84 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

The General nearly had a fit, while Miss Youghal 
was sobbing out the story of the disguise and the 
engagement that wasn’t recognized by the parents. 
Strickland was furiously angry with himself and 
more angry with the General for forcing his hand : 
so he said nothing, but held the horse’s head and 
prepared to thrash the General as some sort of sat- 
isfaction, but when the General had thoroughly 
grasped the stor}^, and knew who Strickland was, 
he began to puff and bJow in the saddle, and nearly 
rolled off with laughing. He said Strickland de- 
served a Y. C., if it were only for putting on a sms's 
blanket. Then he called himself names, and vowed 
that he deserved a thrashing, but he was too old to 
take it from Strickland. Then he complimented 
Miss Youghal on her lover. The scandal of the 
business never struck him ; for he was a nice old man, 
with a weakness for flirtations. Then he laughed 
again, and said that old Youghal was a fool. Strick- 
land let go of the cob’s head, and suggested that 
the General had better help them, if that was his 
opinion. Strickland knew Youghal’s weakness for 
men with titles and letters after their names and 
high official position. “ It’s rather like a forty- 
minute farce,” said the General, “ but begad, I will 
help, if it’s only to escape that tremendous thrash- 
ing I deserved. Go along to your home, my sais- 
Policeman, and change into decent kit and I’ll at- 
tack Mr. Youghal. Miss Youghal, may I ask you tc 
canter home and wait? ” 


MISS youghal’s sais. 


35 


About seven minutes later, there was a wild hur- 
roosh at the Club. A sais , with blanket and head- 
rope, was asking all the men he knew : “ For 
Heaven’s sake lend me decent clothes ! ” As the 
men did not recognize him, there were some peculiar 
scenes before Strickland could get a hot bath, with 
soda in it, in one room, a shirt here, a collar there, 
a pair of trousers elsew T here, and so on. He gal- 
loped off, with half the Club wardrobe on his back, 
and an utter stranger’s pony under him, to the house 
of old Youghal. The General, arrayed in purple 
and fine linen, was before him. What the General 
had said Strickland never knew, but Youghal re- 
ceived Strickland with moderate civility ; and Mrs. 
Youghal, touched by the devotion of the trans- 
formed Dulloo, was almost kind. The General 
beamed and chuckled, and Miss Youghal came in, 
and almost before old Youghal knew where he was, 
the parental consent had been wrenched out, and 
Strickland had departed with Miss Youghal to the 
Telegraph Office to wire for his kit. The final em- 
barrassment was when an utter stranger attacked 
him on the Mall and asked for the stolen pony. 

So, in the end, Strickland and Miss Youghal were 
married, on the strict understanding that Strickland 
should drop his old ways, and stick to Departmental 
routine which pays best and leads to Simla. Strick- 
land was far too fond of his wife, just then, to break 
his word, but it was a sore trial to him ; for the streets 
and the bazars, and the sounds in them, were full of 
meaning to Strickland, and these called to him to 


36 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

come back and take up his wanderings and his dis- 
coveries. Some day, I will tell you how he broke 
his promise to help a friend. That was long since, 
and he has, by this time, been nearly spoilt for what 
he would call shikar. He is forgetting the slang, 
and the beggar’s cant, and the marks, and the signs, 
and the drift of the under-currents, which, if a man 
would master, he must always continue to learn. 

But he fills in his Departmental returns beautifully. 


YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVEB.” 


37 


u YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER* 

I am dying for you, and you are dying for another. 

Punjabi Proverb. 

When the Gravesend tender left the P. & O. 
steamer for Bombay and went back to catch the train 
to Town, there were many people in it crying. But 
the one who wept most, and most openly, was Miss 
Agnes Laiter. She had reason to cry, because the 
only man she ever loved — or ever could love, so she 
said — was going out to India ; and India, as every 
one knows, is divided equalty between jungle, tigers, 
cobras, cholera and sepoys. 

Phil Garron, leaning over the side of the steamer 
in the rain, felt very unhappy too ; but he did not cry. 
He was sent out to “ tea.” What “ tea ” meant he 
had not the vaguest idea, but fancied that he would 
have to ride on a prancing horse over hills covered 
with tea-vines, and draw a sumptuous salary for 
doing so ; and he was very grateful to his uncle for 
getting him the berth. He was really going to reform 
all his slack, shiftless ways, save a large proportion of 
his magnificent salary yearly, and, in a very short 
time, return to marry Agnes Laiter. Phil Garron 
had been lying loose on his friends’ hands for three 
years, and, as he had nothing to do, he naturally 
tell in love. He was very nice ; but he was not 


38 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


strong in his views and opinions and principles, and 
though he never came to actual grief his friends were 
thankful when he said good-by, and went out to 
this mysterious “tea” business near Darjiling. 
They said : — “ God bless you, dear boy ! Let us 
never see your face again,” — or at least that was 
what Phil was given to understand. 

When he sailed, he was very full of a great plan 
to prove himself several hundred times better than 
any one had given him credit for — to work like a 
horse, and triumphantly marry Agnes Laiter. He 
had many good points besides his good looks ; his 
only fault being that he was weak, the least little 
bit in the world, weak. He had as much notion of 
economy as the Morning Sun ; and yet you could 
not lay your hand on any one item, and say : — 
“ Herein Phil Garron is extravagant or reckless.” 
Hor could you point out any particular vice in his 
character ; but he was “ unsatisfactory ” and as 
workable as putty. 

Agnes Laiter went about her duties at home — her 
family objected to the engagement — with red eyes, 
while Phil was sailing to Darjiling — “ a port on the 
Bengal Ocean,” as his mother used to tell her friends. 
He was popular enough on board ship, made many 
acquaintances and a moderately large liquor- bill, 
and sent off huge letters to Agnes Laiter at each 
port. Then he fell to work on this plantation, 
somewhere between Darjiling and Kangra, and, 
though the salary and the horse and the work were 
not quite all he had fancied, he succeeded fairly 


“ YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.” 39 

well, and gave himself much unnecessary credit for 
his perseverance. 

In the course of time, as he settled more into col- 
lar, and his work grew fixed before him, the face of 
Agnes Laiter went out of his mind and only came 
when he was at leisure, which was not often. He 
would forget all about her for a fortnight, and re- 
member her with a start, like a school-boy who has 
forgotten to learn his lesson. She did not forget 
Phil, because she was of the kind that never forgets. 
Only, another man — a really desirable young man 
— presented himself before Mrs. Laiter; and the 
chance of a marriage with Phil was as far off as 
ever ; and his letters were so unsatisfactory ; and 
there was a certain amount of domestic pressure 
brought to bear on the girl ; and the young man 
really was an eligible person as incomes go ; and 
the end of all things was that Agnes married him, 
and wrote a tempestuous whirlwind of a letter to 
Phil in the wilds of Darjiling, and said she should 
never know a happy moment all the rest of her life. 
Which was a true prophecy. 

Phil got that letter, and held himself ill-treated. 
/This was two years after he had come out ; but by 
(dint of thinking fixedly of Agnes Laiter, and look- 
ing at her photograph, and patting himself on the 
back for being one of the most constant lovers in 
history, and warming to the work as he went on, 
he really fancied that he had been very hardly used. 
He sat down and wrote one final letter — a really 
pathetic “world without end, amen,” epistle; ex- 


40 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

plaining how he would, be true to Eternity, and that 
all women were very much alike, and he would hide 
his broken heart, etc., etc. ; but if, at any future 
time, etc., etc., he could afford to wait, etc., etc., 
unchanged affections, etc., etc., return to her old 
love, etc., etc., for eight closely-written pages. 
From an artistic point of view, it was very neat 
work, but an ordinary Philistine, who knew the 
state of Phil’s real feelings — not the ones he rose to 
as he went on writing — would have called it the 
thoroughly mean and selfish work of a thoroughly 
mean and selfish, weak man. But this verdict would 
have been incorrect. Phil paid for the postage, 
and felt every word he had written for at least two 
days and a half. It was the last flicker before the 
light went out. 

That letter made Agnes Laiter very unhappy, 
and she cried and put it away in her desk, and be* 
came Mrs. Somebody Else for the good of her 
family. Which is the first duty of every Christian 
maid. 

Phil went his ways, and thought no more of his 
letter, except as an artist thinks of a neatly touched- 
in sketch. His ways were not bad, but they were 
not altogether good until they brought him across 
Dunmaya, the daughter of a Rajput ex-Subadar- 
Major of our Native Army. The girl had a strain 
of Hill blood in her, and, like the Hill women, was 
not a purdah nashin. Where Phil met her, or how 
he heard of her, does not matter. She was a good 
girl and handsome, and, in her way, very clever and 


41 


st YOKED WITH AN UNBELIEVER.*’ 

shrewd ; though, of course, a little hard. It is to be 
remembered that Phil was living very comfortably, 
denying himself no small luxury, never putting by 
an anna, very satisfied with himself and his good 
intentions, was dropping all his English corre- 
spondents one by one, and beginning more and more 
to look upon this land as his home. Some men fall 
this way ; and they are of no use afterwards. The 
climate where he was stationed was good, and it 
really did not seem to him that there was anything 
to go Home for. 

He did what many planters have done before him 
— that is to say, he made up his mind to marry a 
Hill-girl and settle down. He was seven and twenty 
then, with a long life before him, but no spirit to 
go through with it. So he married Dunmaya by the 
forms of the English Church, and some fellow-plant- 
ers said he was a fool, and some said he was a wise 
man. Dunmaya was a thoroughly honest girl, and, 
in spite of her reverence for an Englishman, had 
a reasonable estimate of her husband’s weaknesses. 
She managed him tenderly, and became, in less than 
a year, a very passable imitation of an English lady 
in dress and carriage. [It is curious to think that 
a Hill-man, after a lifetime’s education, is a Hill- 
man still ; but a Hill-woman can in six months 
master most of the ways of her English sisters. 
There was a coolie- woman once. But that is another 
story.] Dunmaya dressed by preference in black 
and yellow, and looked well. 

Meantime the letter lay in Agnes’s desk, and now 


42 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and again she V' ould think of poor, resolute, hard, 
working Phil among the cobras and tigers of Dar- 
jiling, toiling in the vain hope that she might come 
back to him. Her husband was worth ten Phils, 
except that he had rheumatism of the heart. Three 
years after he was married, — and after he had tried 
Hice and Algeria for his complaint — he went to 
Bombay, where he died, and set Agnes free. Being 
a devout woman, she looked on his death and the 
place of it, as a direct interposition of Providence, 
and when she had recovered from the shock she took 
out and re-read Phil’s letter with the “ etc., etc., ” 
and the big dashes, and the little dashes, and kissed 
it several times. Ho one knew her in Bombay ; she 
had her husband’s income, which was a large one, 
and Phil was close at hand. It was wrong and 
improper, of course, but she decided, as heroines do 
in novels, to find her old lover, to offer him her hand 
and her gold, and with him spend the rest of her 
life in some spot far from unsympathetic souls. She 
sat for two months, alone in Watson’s Hotel, elabo- 
rating this decision, and the picture was a pretty 
one. Then she set out in search of Phil Garron, 
Assistant on a tea plantation with a more than 
usually unpronounceable name. 

She found him. She spent a month over it, for 
his plantation was not in the Darjiling district at 
all, but near Kangra. Phil was very little altered, 
and Dunmaya was very nice to her. 

How the particular sin and shame of the whole 


43 


“YOKED WIT] I AN UNBELIEVER.” 

business is that Phil, who really is not worth think- 
ing of twice, was and is loved by Dunmaya, and 
more than loved by Agnes, the whole of whose life 
he seems to have spoilt. 

Worst of all, Dunmaya is making a decent man 
of him ; and he will be ultimately saved from per- 
dition through her training. 

Which is manifestly unfair. 


44 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE BILLS. 


FALSE DAWK 

To-night God knows wliat thing shall tide. 

The Earth is racked and faint — 

Expectant, sleepless, open-eyed ; 

And we, who from the Earth were made, 

Thrill with our Mother’s pain. 

In Durance. 

No man will ever know the exact truth of this 
story ; though women may sometimes whisper it to 
one another after a dance, when they are putting 
up their hair for the night and comparing lists of 
victims. A man, of course, cannot assist at these 
functions. So the tale must be told from the out- 
side — in the dark — all wrong. 

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of 
your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so 
preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are 
women first, and sisters afterwards ; and you will 
find that you do yourself harm. 

Saumarez knew this when he made up his mind 
to propose to the elder Miss Copleigh. Saumarez 
was a strange man, with few merits, so far as men 
could see, though he was popular with women, and 
carried enough conceit to stock a Viceroy’s Council 
and leave a little over for the Commander-in-Chief’s 
Staff. He was a Civilian. Very many women took 
an interest in Saumarez, perhaps, because his manner 


FALSE DAWN. 


45 


to them was offensive. If you hit a pony over the 
nose at the outset of your acquaintance, he may not 
love you, but he will take a deep interest in your 
movements ever afterwards. The elder Miss Cop- 
leigh was nice, plump, winning, and pretty. The 
younger was not so pretty, and, from men disregard- 
ing the hint set forth above, her style was repellant 
and unattractive. Both girls had, practically, the 
same figure, and there was a strong likeness between 
them in look and voice ; though no one could doubt 
for an instant which was the nicer of the two. 

Saumarez made up his mind, as soon as they came 
into the station from Behar, to marry the elder one. 
At least, we all made sure that he would, which 
comes to the same thing. She was two-and-twenty, 
and he was thirty-three, with pay and allowances of 
nearly fourteen hundred rupees a month. So the 
match, as we arranged it, was in every way a good 
one. Saumarez was his name, and summary was 
his nature, as a man once said. Having drafted his 
Kesolution, he formed a Select Committee of One to 
sit upon it, and resolved to take his time. In our 
unpleasant slang, the Copleigh girls “ hunted in 
couples.” That is to say, you could do nothing with 
one without the other. They were very loving sis- 
ters ; but their mutual affection was sometimes incon- 
venient. Saumarez held the balance-hair true be- 
tween them, and none but himself could have said 
to which side his heart inclined ; though every one 
guessed. He rode with them a good deal and 
danced with them, but he never succeeded in de- 


46 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


tacking them from each other for any length of 

time. 

Women said that the two girls kept together 
through deep mistrust, each fearing that the other 
would steal a march on her. But that has nothing 
to do with a man. Saumarez was silent for good or 
bad, and as business-likely attentive as he could be, 
having due regard to his work and his polo. Be- 
yond doubt both girls were fond of him. 

As the hot weather drew nearer, and Saumarez 
made no sign, women said that you could see their 
trouble in the eyes of the girls — that they were 
looking strained, anxious, and irritable. Men are 
quite blind in these matters unless they have more 
of the woman than the man in their composition, in 
which case it does not matter what they say or 
think. I maintain it was the hot April days that 
took the color out of the Copleigh girls’ cheeks. 
They should have been sent to the Hills early. Ho 
one — man or woman — feels an angel when the hot 
weather is approaching. The younger sister grew 
more cynical — not to say acid — in her ways ; and 
the winningness of the elder wore thin. There was 
more effort in it. 

How the Station wherein all these things happened 
was, though not a little one, off the line of rail, and 
suffered through want of attention. There were no 
gardens or bands or amusements worth speaking of, 
and it was nearly a day’s journey to come into La- 
hore for a dance. People were grateful for smaT 
things to interest them. 


FALSE DAWN. 


47 


About the beginning ot May, and just before the 
final exodus of Hill-goers, when the weather was 
very hot and there were not more than twenty people 
in the Station, Saumarez gave a moon-light riding-pic- 
nic at an old tomb, six miles away, near the bed of the 
river. It was a “ Noah’s Ark” picnic ; and there 
was to be the usual arrangement of quarter-mile in- 
tervals between each couple, on account of the dust. 
Six couples came altogether, including chaperons. 
Moonlight picnics are useful just at the very end of 
the season, before all- the girls go away to the Hills. 
They lead to understandings, and should be encour- 
aged by chaperons ; especially those whose girls 
look sweetest in riding habits. I knew a case once. 
But that is another story. That picnic was called 
! the “ Great Pop picnic,” because every one knew 
Saumarez would propose then to the eldest Miss 
Copleigh ; and, beside his affair, there was another 
which might possibly come to happiness. The social 
atmosphere was heavily charged and wanted clear- 
! ing. 

We met at the parade-ground at ten : the night 
was fearfully hot. The horses sweated even at 
walking-pace, but anything was better than sitting 
i still in our own dark houses. When we moved off 
under ihe full moon we were four couples, one 
! triplet, and Mr. Saumarez rode with the Copleigh 
| girls, and I loitered at the tail of the procession 
wondering with whom Saumarez would ride home. 
Every one was happy and contented ; but we all 
felt that things were going to happen. We rode 


48 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


slowly ; and it was nearly midnight before we 
reached the old tomb, facing the ruined tank, in the 
decayed gardens where we were going to eat and 
drink. I was late in coming up ; and before I went 
into the garden, I saw that the horizon to the north 
carried a faint, dun-colored feather. But no one 
would have thanked me for spoiling so well-man- 
aged an entertainment as this picnic — and a dust- 
* storm, more or less, does no great harm. 

. We gathered by the tank. Some one had brought 
out a banjo — which is a most sentimental instru- 
ment — and three or four of us sang. You must not 
laugh at this. Our amusements in out-of-the-way 
Stations are very few indeed. Then we talked in 
groups or together, lying under the trees, with the 
sun-baked roses dropping their petals on our feet, 
until supper was ready. It was a beautiful supper, 
as cold and as iced as you could wish ; and we 
stayed long over it. 

I had felt that the air was growing hotter and 
hotter ; but nobody seemed to notice it until the 
moon went out and a burning hot wind began lash- 
ing the orange-trees with a sound like the noise of 
the sea. Before we knew where we were, the dust- 
storm was on us, and everything was roaring, whirl- 
ing darkness. The supper-table w^as blown bodily 
into the tank. We were afraid of staying anywhere 
near the old tomb for fear it might be blown down. 
So we felt our way to the orange-trees where the 
horses were picketed and waited for the storm to 
blow over. Then the little light that was left van- 


FALSE DAWN. 


49 


ished, and you could not see your hand before your 
face. The air was heavy with dust and sand from 
the bed of the river, that filled boots and pockets 
and drifted down necks and coated eyebrows and 
mustaches. It was one of the worst dust-storms 
of the year. We were all huddled together close to 
the trembling horses, with the thunder chattering 
overhead, and the lightning spurting like water 
from a sluice, all ways at once. There was no 
danger, of course, unless the horses broke loose. I 
was standing with my head downwind and my 
hands over my mouth, hearing the trees thrashing 
each other. I could not see who was next me till the 
flashes came. Then I found that I was packed near 
Saumarez and the eldest Miss Copleigh, with my 
own horse just in front of me. I recognized the 
eldest Miss Copleigh, because she had a jpagri round 
her helmet, and the younger had not. All the elec- 
tricity in the air had gone into my body and I was 
quivering and tingling from head to foot — exactly 
as a corn shoots and tingles before rain. It was a 
grand storm. The wind seemed to be picking up 
the earth and pitching it to leeward in great heaps ; 
and the heat beat up from the ground like the heat 
of the Day of Judgment. 

The storm, lulled slightly after the first half-hour, 
and I heard a despairing little voice close to my ear, 
saying to itself, quietly and softly, as if some lost 
soul were flying about with the wind : — “ O my 
God ! ” Then the younger Miss Copleigh stumbled 
into my arms, saying : “ Where is my horse ? Get 

4 


50 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


my horse. I want to go home. I wcmt to go home. 
Take me home.” 

I thought that the lightning and the black dark- 
ness had frightened her ; so I said there was no 
danger, but she must wait till the storm blew over. 
She answered : “ It is not that ! It is not that ! I 
want to go home ! O take me away from here ! ” 

I said that she could not go till the light came ; 
but I felt her brush past me and go away. It was 
too dark to see where. Then the whole sky was 
split open with one tremendous flash, as if the 
end of the world were coming, and all the women 
shrieked. 

Almost directly after this, I felt a man’s hand on 
my shoulder and heard Saumarez bellowing in my 
ear. Through the rattling of the trees and howling 
of the wind, I did not catch his words at once, but 
at last I heard him say : — “ I’ve proposed to the 
wrong one ! What shall Ido?” Saumarez had no 
occasion to make this confidence to me. I was 
never a friend of his, nor am I now ; but I fancy 
neither of us were ourselves just then. He was 
shaking as he stood with excitement, and I was feel- 
ing queer all over with the electricity. I could not 
think of anything to say except : — “ More fool you 
for proposing in a dust-storm.” But I did not see 
how that would improve the mistake. 

Then he shouted : — “ Where’s Edith — Edith Cop- 
leigh ? ” Edith was the younger sister. I answered 
out of my astonishment : — “ What do you want with 
her?” Would you believe it, for the next two 


FALSE DAWN. 


51 


minutes, he and I were shouting at each other like 
maniacs, — he vowing that it was the younger sister 
he had meant to propose to all along, and I telling 
.him till my throat was hoarse that he must have 
made a mistake ! I can’t account for this except, 
again, by the fact that we were neither of us our- 
selves. Everything seemed to me likp a bad dream 
— from the stamping of the horses in the darkness to 
Saumarez telling me the story of his loving Edith 
Copleigh since the first. He was still clawing my 
shoulders and begging me to tell him where Edith 
Copleigh was, when another lull came and brought 
light with it, and we saw the dust-cloud forming on 
the plain in front of us. So we knew the worst was 
over. The moon was low down, and there was just 
the glimmer of the false dawn that comes about an 
hour before the real one. But the light was very 
faint, and the dun cloud roared like a bull. I won- 
dered where Edith Copleigh had gone ; and as I was 
wondering I saw three things together : First Maud 
Copleigh’s face come smiling out of the darkness 
and moved towards Saumarez who was standing by 
me. I heard the girl whisper : — “ George,” and 
glide her arm through the arm that was not clawing 
my shoulder, and I saw that look on her face which 
only comes once or twice in a lifetime — when a 
woman is perfectly happy and the air is full of 
trumpets and gorgeous-colored fire and the Earth 
turns into cloud because she loves and is loved. At 
the same time, I saw Saumarez’s face as he heard 
Maud Copleigh’s voice, and fifty yards away from 


52 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


t he ciump of orange-trees, I saw a brown holland 
habit getting upon a horse. 

It must have been my state of over-excitement 
that made me so quick to meddle with what did not 
concern me. Saumarez was moving off to the habit , 
but I pushed him back and said : — “ Stop here and 
explain. I’ll fetch her back ! ” And I ran out to 
get at my own horse. I had a perfectly unneces- 
sary notion that everything must be done decently 
and in order, and that Saumarez’s first care was to 
wipe the happy look out of Maud Copleigh’s face. 
All the time I was linking up the curb-chain I won- 
dered how he would do it. 

I cantered after Edith Copleigh, thinking to bring 
her back slowly on some pretense or another. But 
she galloped away as soon as she saw me, and I was 
forced to ride after her in earnest. She called back 
over her shoulder — “ Go away ! I’m going home. 
Oh, go away ! ” two or three times ; but my busi- 
ness was to catch her first, and argue later. The ride 
just fitted in with the rest of the evil dream. The 
ground was very bad, and now and again we rushed 
through the whirling, choking “ dust 7 devils ” in the 
skirts of the flying storm. There was a burning hot 
wind blowing that brought up a stench of stale 
brick-kilns with it ; and through the half light and 
through the dust-devils, across that desolate plain, i 
flickered the brown holland habit on the gray horse. 
She headed for the Station at first. Then she 
wheeled round and set off for the river through beds 
of burni down jungle-grass, bad even to ride pig 


FALSE DAWN. 


53 


over. In cold blood I should never have dreamed 
of going over such a country at night, but it seemed 
quite right and natural with the lightning crackling 
overhead, and a reek like the smell of the Pit in my 
nostrils. I rode and shouted, and she bent forward 
and lashed her horse, and the aftermath of the dust 
storm came up and caught us both, and drove us 
down wind like pieces of paper. 

I don’t know how far we rode ; but the drumming 
of the horse-hoofs and the roar of the wind and the 
race of the faint blood-red moon through the yellow 
mist seemed to have gone on for years and years, 
and I was literally drenched with sweat from my 
helmet to my gaiters when the gray stumbled, re- 
covered himself, and pulled up dead lame. My brute 
was used up altogether. Edith Copleigh was in a 
sad state, plastered with dust, her helmet off, and 
crying bitterly. “ Why can’t you let me alone ? ” 
she said. “ I only wanted to get away and go home. 
Oh, please let me go ! ” 

“You have got to come back with me, Miss 
Copleigh. Saumarez has something to say to 
you.” 

It was a foolish way of putting it ; but I hardly 
knew Miss Copleigh, and, though I was playing 
Providence at the cost of my horse, I could not tell 
her in as many words what Saumarez had told me. 
I thought he could do that better himself. All her 
pretense about being tired and wanting to go home 
broke down, and she rocked herself to and fro in the 
saddle as she sobbed, and the hot wind blew her 


54 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


black hair to leeward. I am not going to repeat 
what she said, because she was utterly unstrung. 

This, if you please, was the cynical Miss Copleigh. 

' Here was I, almost an utter stranger to her, trying 
to tell her that Saumarez loved her and she was to 
come back to hear him say so ? I believe I made 
myself understood, for she gathered the gray to- 
gether and made him hobble somehow, and we set 
off for the tomb, while the storm went thundering 
down to TJmballa and a few big drops of warm 
rain fell. I found out that she had been standing 
close to Saumarez when he proposed to her sister, 
and had wanted to go home to cry in peace, as an 
English girl should. She dabbed her eyes with her 
pocket-handkerchief as we went along, and babbled 
to me out of sheer lightness of heart and hysteria. 
That was perfectly unnatural ; and yet, it seemed 
all right at the time and in the place. All the world 
was only the two Copleigh girls, Saumarez and I, 
ringed in with the lightning and the dark ; and the 
guidance of this misguided world seemed to lie in my 
hands. 

When we returned to the tomb in the deep, dead 
stillness that followed the storm, the dawn was just 
breaking and nobody had gone away. They were 
waiting for our return. Saumarez most of all. His 
face was white and drawn. As Miss Copleigh and 
I limped up, he came forward to meet us, and, when 
he helped her down from her saddle, he kissed her 
before all the picnic. It was like a scene in a theater, 
and the likeness was heightened by all the dust- 


FALSE DAWN. 


55 


white, ghostly-looking men and women under the 
orange-trees, clapping their hands — as if they were 
watching a play — at Saumarez’s choice. I never 
knew anything so un-English in my life. 

Lastly, Saumarez said we must all go home or the 
Station would come out to look for us, and would I 
be good enough to ride home with Maud Copleigh ? 
Nothing would give me greater pleasure, I said. 

So, we formed up, six couples in all, and went 
back two b}^ two ; Saumarez walking at the side of 
Edith Copleigh, who was riding his horse. 

The air was cleared ; and little by little, as the 
sun rose, I felt we were all dropping back again 
into ordinary men and women and that the “ Great 
Pop Picnic ” was a thing altogether apart and out 
of the world — never to happen again. It had gone 
with the dust-storm and the tingle in the hot air. 

I felt tired and limp, and a good deal ashamed of 
myself as I went in for a bath and some sleep. 

There is a woman’s version of this story, but it 
will never be written .... unless Maud Copleigh 
cares to try. 


56 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 

Thus, for a season, they fought it fair — 

She and his cousin May — 

Tactful, talented, debonnaire, 

Decorous foes were they ; 

But never can battle of man compare 
With merciless feminine fray. 

Two and One. 

Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own 
sex. Here is a story to prove this ; and you can 
believe just as much as ever you please. 

Pluffles was a subaltern in the “ Unmentionables.” 
He was callow, even for a subaltern. He was cal- 
low all over — like a canary that had not finished 
fledging itself. The worst of it was he had three 
times as much money as was good for him ; Pluffles 5 
Papa being a rich man and Pluffles being the only 
son. Pluffles 5 Mamma adored him. She was only 
a little less callow than Pluffles and she believed 
everything he said. 

Pluffles 5 weakness was not believing what people 
said. He preferred what he called “ trusting to his 
own judgment.” He had as much judgment as he 
had seat or hands ; and this preference tumbled 
him into trouble once or twice. But the biggest 
trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about at 


THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 57 

Simla — some years ago, when he was four- and 
twenty. 

He began by trusting to his own judgment, as 
usual, and the result was that, after a time, he was 
bound hand and foot to Mrs. Beiver’s ’rickshaw 
wheels. 

There was nothing good about Mrs. Beiver, un- 
less it was her dress. She was bad from her hair— 
which started life on a Brittany girl’s head — to her 
boot-heels which were two and three-eighth inches 
high. She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. 
Hauksbee ; she was wicked in a business-like way. 

There was never any scandal — she had not gen- 
erous impulses enough for that. She was the ex- 
ception which proved the rule that Anglo-Indian 
ladies are in every way as nice as their sisters at 
Home. She spent her life in proving that rule. 

Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. 
They heard far too much to clash ; but the things 
they said of each other were startling — not to say 
original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest — honest as 
her own front-teeth — and, but for her love of mis- 
chief, would have been a woman’s woman. There 
was no honesty about Mrs. Beiver ; nothing but 
selfishness. And at the beginning of the season, 
poor little Pluflles fell a prey to her. She laid her- 
self out to that end, and who was Pluflles to resist ? 
He went on trusting to his judgment, and he got 
judged. 

I have seen Hayes argue with a tough horse — I 
have seen a tonga-driver coerce a stubborn pony — I 


58 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


have seen a riotous setter broken to gun by a bard 
keeper — but the breaking-in of Pluffies of the “ Un- 
mentionables ” was beyond all these. He learned 
to fetch and carry like a dog, and to wait like one, 
too, for a word from Mrs. Reiver. He learned to 
keep appointments which Mrs. Reiver had no inten- 
tion of keeping. He learned to take thankfully 
dances which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of giving 
him. He learned to shiver for an hour and a quarter 
on the windward side of Elysium while Mrs. Reiver 
was making up her mind to come for a ride. He 
learned to hunt for a ’rickshaw, in a light dress-suit 
under pelting rain, and to walk by the side of that 
’rickshaw when he had found it. He learned what 
it was to be spoken to like a coolie and ordered 
about like a cook. He learned all this and many 
other things besides. And he paid for his schooling. 

Perhaps, in some hazy way, he fancied that it 
was fine and impressive, that it gave him a status 
among men, and was altogether the thing to do. 
It was nobody’s business to warn Pluffies that he 
was unwise. The pace that season was too good to 
inquire ; and meddling with another man’s folly is 
always thankless work. Pluffies’ Colonel should 
have ordered him back to his regiment when he 
heard, how things were going. But Pluffies had 
got himself engaged to a girl in England the last 
time he went home; and if there was one thing 
more than another which the Colonel detested, it 
was a married subaltern. He chuckled when he 
heard of the education of Pluffies, and said it was 


THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 


59 


“ good training for the boy.” But it was not good 
training in the least. It led him into spending 
money beyond his means, which were good : above 
that the education spoilt an average boy and made 
it a tenth-rate man of an objectionable kind. He 
wandered into a bad set, and his little bill a' 
Hamilton’s was a thing to wonder at. 

Then Mrs. Hauksbee rose to the occasion. She 
played her game alone, knowing what people would 
say of her ; and she played it for the sake of a girl 
she had never seen. Pluffles’ fiancee was to come 
out, under chaperonage of an aunt, in October, to 
be married to Pluffles. 

At the beginning of August, Mrs. Hauksbee dis- 
covered that it was time to interfere. A man who 
rides much knows exactly what a horse is going to 
do next before he does it. In the same way, a 
woman of Mrs. Hauks bee’s experience knows accu- 
rately how a boy will behave under certain circum- 
stances — notably when he is infatuated with one of 
Mrs. Reiver’s stamp. She said that, sooner or later, 
little Pluffles would break off that engagement for 
nothing at all — simply to gratify Mrs. Reiver, who, 
in return, would keep him at her feet and in her 
service just so long as she found it worth her while. 
She said she knew the signs of these things. If she 
did not, no one else could. 

Then she went forth to capture Pluffles under the 
guns of the enemy ; just as Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil 
carried away Bremmil under Mrs. Hauksbee’s eyes. 

This particular engagement lasted seven weeks — 


60 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


we called it the Seven Weeks’ War— and was fought 
out inch by inch on both sides. A detailed account 
would fill a book, and would be incomplete then. 
Any one who knows about these things can fit in 
the details for himself. It was a superb fight— 
there will never be another like it as long as Jakko 
stands — and Pluffles was the prize of victory. People 
said shameful things about Mrs. Hauksbee. They 
did not know what she was playing for. Mrs. Reiver 
fought, partly because Pluffles was useful to her, 
but mainly because she hated Mrs. Hauksbee, and 
the matter was a trial of strength between them. 
No one knows what Pluffles thought. He had not 
many ideas at the best of times, and the few he pos- 
sessed made him conceited. Mrs. Hauksbee said : — 
“ The boy must be caught ; and the only way of 
catching him is by treating him well.” 

So she treated him as a man of the world and of 
experience so long as the issue was doubtful. Little 
by little, Pluffles fell away from his old allegiance 
and came over to the enemy, by whom he was made 
much of. He was never sent on out-post duty after 
’rickshaws any more, nor was he given dances which 
never came off, nor were the drains on his purse 
continued. Mrs. Hauksbee held him on the snaffle; 
and, after his treatment at Mrs. Reiver’s hands, he 
appreciated the change. 

Mrs. Reiver, had broken him of talking aJbout 
himself, and made him talk about her own merits. 
Mrs. Hauksbee acted otherwise, and won his confi- 
dence, till he mentioned his engagement to the girl 


THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 


61 


at Home, speaking of it in a high and mighty way 
as a “ piece of boyish folly.” This was when he was 
taking tea with her one afternoon, and discoursing 
in what he considered a gay and fascinating style. 
Mrs. Hauksbee had seen an earlier generation of his 
stamp bud and blossom, and decay into fat Captains 
and tubby Majors. 

At a moderate estimate there were about three 
and twenty sides to that lady’s character. Some 
men say more. She began to talk to Pluffles aiter 
the manner of a mother, and as if there had been 
three hundred years, instead of fifteen, between 
them. She spoke with a sort of throaty quaver in 
her voice which had a soothing effect, though what 
she said was anything but soothing. She pointed 
out the exceeding folly, not to say meanness, of 
Pluffles’ conduct, and the smallness of his views. 
Then he stammered something about “ trusting to 
his own judgment as a man of the world ; ” and this 
paved the way for what she wanted to say next. It 
would have withered up Pluffles had it come from 
any other woman ; but in the soft cooing style in 
which Mrs. Hauksbee put it, it only made him feel 
limp and repentant — as if he had been in some 
superior kind of church. Little by little, very softly 
and pleasantly, she began taking the conceit out of 
Pluffles, as you take the ribs out of an umbrella before 
re-covering it. She told him what she thought of 
him and his judgment and his knowledge of the 
world ; and how his performances had made him 
ridiculous to other people ; and how it was his in- 


62 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


tention to make love to herself if she gave him the 
chance. Then she said that marriage would be the 
making of him ; and drew a pretty little picture- 
all rose and opal — of the Mrs. Pluffles of the future 
going through life relying on the “ judgment ” and 
“ knowledge of the world ” of a husband who had 
nothing to reproach himself with. How she recon- 
ciled these two statements she alone knew. But they 
did not strike Pluffles as conflicting. 

Hers was a perfect little homily — much better 
than any clergyman could have given — and it ended 
with touching allusions to Pluffles’ Mamma and 
Papa, and the wisdom of taking his bride Home. 

Then she sent Pluffles out for a walk, to think 
over what she had said. Pluffles left, blowing his 
nose very hard and holding himself very straight. 
Mrs. Hauksbee laughed. 

What Pluffles had intended to do in the matter 
of the engagement only Mrs. Eeiver knew, and she 
kept her own counsel to her death. She would 
have liked it spoiled as a compliment, I fancy. 

Pluffles enjoyed many talks with Mrs. Hauksbee 
during the next few days. They were all to the 
same end, and they helped Pluffles in the path of 
Virtue. 

Mrs. Hauksbee wanted to keep him under her 
wing to the last. Therefore she discountenanced 
his going down to Bombay to get married. “ Good- 
ness only knows what might happen by the way ! ” 
she said. “ Pluffles is cursed with the curse of 
Reuben, and India is no fit place for him 1 ” 


THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES. 


63 


In the end, the fiancee arrived with her aunt; 
and Pluffles, having reduced his affairs to some sort 
of order — here again Mrs. Hauksbee helped him — 
was married. 

Mrs. Hauksbee gave a sigh of relief when both 
the “ I wills ” had been said, and went her way. 

Pluffles took her advice about going Home. He 
left the Service, and is now raising speckled cattle 
inside green painted fences somewhere at Home. I 
believe he does this very judiciously. He would 
have come to extreme grief out here. 

For these reasons if any one says anything more 
than usually nasty about Mrs. Hauksbee, tell him 
the story of the Kescue of Pluffles. 


i 


64 


P I, ATM TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


OOTID'S ARROWS. 

Pit where the buffalo cooled his hide. 

By the hot sun emptied, and blistered and dried s 
Log in the re/i-grass, hidden and alone ; 

Bund where the earth-rat’s mounds are strown : 

Cave in the bank where the sly stream steals ; 

Aloe that stabs at the belly and heels, 

Jump if you dare on a steed untried — 

Safer it is to go wide — go wide ! 

Hark, from in front where the best men ride : 
u Pall to the off, boys l Wide / Go wide ! n 

The Peora Hunt . 

Once upon a time there lived at Simla a very 
pretty girl, the daughter of a poor but honest Dis- 
trict and Sessions Judge. She was a good girl, but 
could not help knowing her power and using it. 
Her Mamma was very anxious about her daughter’s 
future, as all good Mammas should be. 

When a man is a Commissioner and a bachelor 
and has the right of wearing open-work jam-tart 
jewels in gold and enamel on his clothes, and of go- 
ing through a door before every one except a Mem- 
ber of Council, and Lieutenant-Governor, or a Vic* 
roy, he is worth marrying. At least, that is what 
ladies say. There was a Commissioner in Simla, in 
those days, who was, and wore, and did, all I have 
said. He was a plain man — an ugly man — the 


CUPID’S ARROWS. 


65 


ugliest man in Asia, with two exceptions. His was 
a face to dream about and try to carve on a pipe-head 
afterwards. His name was Saggott — Barr-Saggott 
— Anthony Barr-Saggott and six letters to follow. 
Departmentally, he was one of the best men the 
Government of India owned. Socially, he was like 
a blandishing gorilla. 

When he turned his attentions to Miss Beighton, 
I believe that Mrs. Beighton wept with delight at 
the reward Providence had sent her in her old age. 

Mr. Beighton held his tongue. He was an easy- 
going man. 

Now a Commissioner is very rich. His pay is 
beyond the dreams of avarice — is so enormous that 
he can afford to save and scrape in a way that 
would almost discredit a Member of Council. Most 
Commissioners are mean ; but Barr-Saggott was an 
exception. He entertained royally ; he horsed him- 
self well ; he gave dances ; he was a power in the 
land ; and he behaved as such. 

Consider that evr^ything I am writing o{ took 
place in an almost pre-historic era in the history of 
British India. Some folk may remember the years 
before lawn-tennis was born when we all played 
croquet. There were seasons before that, if you 
will believe me, when even croquet had not been 
invented, and archery — which was revived in Eng- 
land in 1844 — was as great a pest as lawn-tennis is 
now. People talked learnedly about “ holding” 
and “ loosing,” “ steles,” “ reflexed bows,” “ 56-pound 
bows,” “ backed ” or “ self-yew bows,” as we talk 
S 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


about “ rallies,” “ volleys,” “ smashes,” “ returns,” 
and “ 16-ounce rackets.” 

Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies’ distance 
— 60 yards, that is — and was acknowledged the best 
lady archer in Simla. Men called her “Diana of 
TaraDevi.” 

Barr-Saggott paid her great attention ; and, as I 
have said, the heart of her mother was uplifted in 
consequence. Kitty Beighton took matters more 
calmly. It was pleasant to be singled out by a 
Commissioner with letters after his name, and to 
fill the hearts of other girls with bad feelings. But 
there was no denying the fact that Barr-Saggott 
was phenomenally ugly ; and all his attempts to 
adorn himself only made him more grotesque. He 
was not christened “ The Langur ” — which means 
gray ape — for nothing. It was pleasant, Kitty 
thought, to have him at her feet, but it was better 
to escape from him and ride with the graceless Cub- 
bo m— the man in a Dragoon Regiment at Umballa 
— the boy with a handsome lace, and no prospects. 
Kitty liked Cubbon more than a little. He never 
pretended for a moment that he was anything less 
than head over heels in love with her ; for he was 
an honest boy. So Kitty fled, now and again, from 
the stately wooings of Barr-Saggott to the company 
of young Cubbon, and was scolded by her Mamma 
in consequence. “ But, Mother,” she said, “ Mr. 
Saggott is such — such a — is so fearfully ugly, you 
know ! ” 

“ My dear,” said Mrs. Beighton, piously, “ we 


cupid’s arrows. 


67 


cannot be other than an all-ruling Providence has 
made us. Besides, you will take precedence of your 
own Mother, you know ! Think of that and be 
reasonable.” 

Then Kitty put up her little chin and said irrev- 
erent things about precedence, and Commissioners, 
and matrimony. Mr. Beighton rubbed the top of 
his head ; for he was an easy-going man. 

Late in the season, when he judged that the time 
was ripe, Barr-Saggott developed a plan which did 
great credit to his administrative powers. He ar- 
ranged an archery-tournament for ladies with a most 
sumptuous diamond-studded bracelet as prize. He 
drew up his terms skilfully, and every one saw that 
the bracelet was a gift to Miss Beighton ; the ac- 
ceptance carrying with it the hand and the heart 
of Commissioner Barr-Saggott. The terms were a 
St. Leonard’s Round — thirty-six shots at sixty yards 
— under the rules of the Simla Toxophilite Society. 

All Simla was invited. There were beautifully 
arranged tea-tables under the deodars at Annandale, 
where the Grand Stand is now ; and, alone in its 
glory, winking in the sun, sat the diamond bracelet 
in a blue velvet case. Miss Beighton was anxious — 
almost too anxious to compete. On the appointed 
afternoon, all Simla rode down to Annandale to wit- 
ness the Judgment of Paris turned upside down. 
Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy to see 
that the boy was troubled in his mind. He must be 
held innocent of everything that followed. Kitty was 
pale and nervous, and looked long at the bracelet. 


68 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Barr-Saggott was gorgeously dressed, even more 
nervous than Kitty, and more hideous than ever. 

Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as befitted 
the mother of a potential Commissioneress, and the 
shooting began ; all the world standing a semicircle 
as the ladies came out one after the other. 

Nothing is so tedious as an archery competition. 
They shot, and they shot, and they kept on shooting, 
till the sun left the valley, and little breezes got up 
in the deodars, and people waited for Miss Beighton 
to shoot and win. Cubbon was at one horn of the 
semicircle round the shooters, and Barr-Saggott at 
the other. Miss Beighton was last on the list. The 
scoring had been weak, and the bracelet, plus Com- 
missioner Barr-Saggott, was hers to a certainty. 

The Commissioner strung her bow with his own 
sacred hands. She stepped forward, looked at the 
bracelet, and her first arrow went true to a hair — 
full iuto the heart of the “ gold ” — counting nine 
points. 

Young Cubbon on the left turned white, and his 
Devil prompted Barr-Saggott to smile. Now horses 
used to shy when Barr-Saggott smiled. Kitty saw 
that smile. She looked to her left-front, gave an 
almost imperceptible nod to Cubbon, and went on 
shooting. 

I wish I could describe the scene that followed. 
It was out of the ordinary and most improper. Miss 
Kitty fitted her arrows with immense deliberation, 
so that every one might see what she was doing. 
She was a perfect shot ; and her 46-pound bow 


CUPID’S ARROWS. 


69 

suited her to a nicety. She pinned the wooden legs 
of the target with great care four successive times. 
She pinned the wooden top of the target once, 
and all the ladies looked at each other. Then she 
began some fancy shooting at the white, which, if 
you hit it, counts exactly one point. She put five 
arrows into the white. It was wonderful archery; 
but, seeing that her business was to make “ golds ” 
and win the bracelet, Barr-Saggott turned a delicate 
green like young water* grass. Next, she shot over 
the target twice, then wide to the left twice — always 
with the same deliberation — while a chilly hush fell 
over the company, and Mrs. Beighton took out her 
handkerchief. Then Kitty shot at the ground in 
front of the target, and split several arrows. Then 
she made a red — or seven points — just to show what 
she could do if she liked, and she finished up her 
amazing performance with some more fancy shoot- 
ing at the target-supports. Here is her score as it 
was pricked off : — 

Total Total 

Gold. Red. Blue. Black. White. Hits. Score. 
Miss Beighton 1 1 0 0 5 7 21 

Barr-Saggott looked as if the last few arrow- 
heads had been driven into his legs instead of the 
target’s, and the deep stillness was broken by a 
little snubby, mottled, half-grown girl saying in a 
shrill voice of triumph, — “ Then I’ve won ! ” 

Mrs. Beighton did her best to bear up ; but she 
wept in the presence of the people. No training 
oould help her through such a disappointment 


TO 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Kitty unstrung her bow with a vicious jerk, and 
went back to her place, while Barr-Saggott was try- 
ing to pretend that he enjoyed snapping the bracelet 
on the snubby girl’s raw, red wrist. It was an 
awkward scene — most awkward. Every one tried 
to depart in a body and leave Kitty to the mercy of 
her Mamma. 

But Cubbon took her away instead, and — the rest 
isn’t worth printing* 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 


71 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 

An* when the war began, we chased the bold Afghan, 

An’ we made the bloomin’ Ghazi for to flee, boys O ! 

An’ we marched into Kabul , and we tuk the Balar Tssar 

An’ we taught ’em to respec’ the British Soldier. 

Barrack Room Ballad . 

Mulvaney, Ortheris and Learoyd are Privates in 
B Company of a Line Begiment, and personal 
friends of mine. Collectively, I think, but am not 
certain, they are the worst men in the regiment so 
far as genial blackguardism goes. 

They told me this story, the other day, in the 
Umballa Refreshment Room while we were waiting 
for an up-train. I supplied the beer. The tale was 
cheap at a gallon and a half. 

Of course you know Lord Benira Trig. He is a 
Duke, or an Earl, or something unofficial ; also a 
Peer ; also a Globe-trotter. On all three counts, as 
Ortheris says, “ ’e didn’t deserve no consideration.” 
He was out here for three months collecting mate- 
rials for a book on “ Our Eastern Impedimenta,” 
and quartering himself upon everybody, like a Cos- 
sack in evening-dress. 

His particular vice — because he was a Radical, I 
suppose — was having garrisons turned out for his 
inspection. He would then dine with the Officer 


72 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Commanding, and insult him, across the Mess table, 
about the appearance of the troops. That was 
Benira’s way. 

He turned out troops once too often. He came to 
Helanthami Cantonment on a Tuesday. He wished 
to go shopping in the bazaars on Wednesday, and he 
“ desired ” the troops to be turned out on a Thursday. 
On — a — Thursday / The Officer Commanding could 
not well refuse ; for Benira was a Lord. There was 
an indignation-meeting of subalterns in the Mess 
Boom, to call the Colonel pet names. 

“But the rale dimonstrashin,” said Mulvaney, 
“ was in B Comp’ny barrick ; we three headin’ it.” 

Mulvaney climbed on to the refreshment-bar, 
settled himself comfortably by the beer, and went 
on : — “ Whin the row was at ut’s foinest an’ B Com- 
p’ny was fur goin’ out to murther this man Thrigg 
on the p’rade-groun’, Learoyd here takes up his 
helmut an’ sez — f what was ut ye said ? ” 

“ Ah said,” said Learoyd, “ gie us t’ brass. Tak 
oop a subscripshun, lads, for to put off t’ p’rade, an’ 
if t’ p’rade’ s not put off, ah’ll gie t’ brass back agean. 
Thot’s wot ah said. All B Coomp’ny knawed me. 
Ah took oop a big subscripshun — fower rupees eight 
annas ’twas — an’ ah went oot too turn t’ job over. 
Mulvaney an’ Orth’ris coom with me.” 

a We three raises the Divil in couples gin’rally,” 
explained Mulvaney. 

Here Ortheris interrupted. “ ’Ave you read the 
papers ? ” said he. 

“ Sometimes,” I said. 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 73 

“We ’ad read the papers, an’ we put hup a faked 
decoity, a — a sedukshun.” 

“ MMukshin, ye cockney,” said Mulvaney. 

“ MJdukshun or sedukshun — no great odds. Any- 
’ow, we arrange to taik an’ put Mister Benhira out 
o’ the way till Thursday was hover, or ’e too busy to 
rux ’isself about p’raids. Hi was the man wot said : 
4 We’ll make a few rupees off o’ the business.’ ” 

“We, hild a Council av War,” continued Mul- 
vaney, “ walkin’ roun’ by the Artill’ry Lines. I 
was Prisidint, Learoyd was Minister av Finance, 
an’ little Orth’ris here was — ” 

44 A bloomin’ Bismarck ! Hi made the ’ole show 
pay.” 

44 This interferin’ bit av a Benira man,” said Mul- 
vaney, 44 did the thrick for us himself ; for, on me 
sowl, we hadn’t a notion av what was to come 
afther the next minut. He was shoppin’ in the 
bazar on fut. ’Twas dhrawin’ dusk thin, an’ we 
stud watchin’ the little man hoppin’ in an’ out av 
the shops, thryin’ to injuce the naygurs to mallum 
his bat. Prisintly he sthrols up, his arrums full av 
thruck, an’ he sez in a consiquinshal way, shticking 
out his little belly : — 4 Me good men,’ sez he, 4 have ye 
seen the Kernel’s b’roosh ? ’ 4 B’roosh ? ’ says Lea- 

ro} T d. 4 There’s no b’roosh here — nobbut a hekka .’ 
4 Fwhat’s that ? ’ sez Thrigg. Learoyd shows him 
wan down the sthreet, an’ he sez : — 4 How thruly 
Orientil ! I will ride on a hekka? I saw thin that 
our Rigimintal Saint was for givin’ Thrigg over to 
us neck an’ brisket. I purshued a hekka, an’ I sez 


H PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

to the dhriver-divil, I sez — 4 Ye black limb, there’s 
a Sahib cornin’ for this hekka. He wants to go 
jildi to the Padsahi Jhil ’ — ’twas about tu modes 
away — to shoot snipe — chirria . 4 You dhrive Jehan- 
num ke marfik , medium f ’Tis no manner av / 'aider 
bukkin > to the Sahib , bekaze he doesn’t samjao your 
bat. Av he bolos anything, just you ehoop and chel. 
Dekkerf Go arsty for the first arder - mile from 
cantonmints. Then chel, Shaitan ke marfik , an’ the 
chooper you choops an’ the jilder you chels the better 
kooshy will that Sahib be ; an’ here’s a rupee for ye.’ 

“ The hekka - man knew there was somethin’ out 
av the common in the air. He grinned and sez : — 
4 Bote achee ! I goin’ damn fast.’ I prayed that the 
Kernel’s b’roosh wudn’t arrive till me darlin’ Benira 
by the grace av God was undher weigh. The little 
man puts his thruck into the hekka an’ scuttles in 
like a fat guinea-pig ; niver offerin’ us the price of 
a dhrink for our services in helpin’ him home. 
4 He’s off to the Padsahi jhilf sez I to the others.” 

Ortheris took up the tale : — 

44 Jist then, little Buldoo kim up, ’oo was the son 
of one of the Artillery Saises — ’e would ’av made a 
’evinly newspaper-boy in London, bein’ sharp and 
fly to all manned o’ games. ’E ’ad bin watchin’ us 
puttin’ Mister Benhira into ’s temporary baroush, 
an’ ’e sez : — 4 What 'are you been a doin’ of, Sahibs f ’ 
sez ’e. Learoyd ’e caught ’im by the ear an’ ’e 
sez — ” 

44 Ah says,” went on Learoyd : 44 4 Young mon, 

that mon’s gooin’ to have ’t ’goons out o’ Thursday 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 


75 


— kul — an’ thot’s more work for you, young mon. 
Now, sitha, tak a tat an’ a lookri , an’ ridetha domd- 
est to t’ Padsahi Jkil. Cotch thot there hekka, 
and tell t’ driver in your lingo thot you’ve coom to 
tak’ his place. T’ Sahib doesn’t speak t’ bat , an’ 
he’s a little mon. Drive t’ hekka into t’ Padsahi 
Jhil into t’ watter. Leave t’ Sahib theer an’ roon 
hoam ; an here’s a rupee for tha.” 

Then Mulvaney and Ortheris spoke together in 
alternate fragments : Mulvaney leading [You must 
pick out the two speakers as best you can. ] : — “ He 
was a knowin’ little devil was Bhuldoo, — ’e sez bote 
aehee an’ cuts — wid a wink in his oi — but Hi sez 
there’s money to be made — an’ I want to see the 
end av the campaign — so Hi says we’ll double hout 
to the Padsahi Jhil — and save the little man from 
bein’ dacoited by the murtherin’ Bhuldoo — an’ turn 
hup like reskoors in a Byle Victoria Theayter Melo- 
drama — so we doubled for the jhil, an’ prisintly 
there was the divil of a hurroosh behind us an’ three 
bhoys on grasscuts’ tats come by, pounding along 
for the dear life — s’elp me Bob, hif Bhuldoo ’adn’t 
raised a regular harmy of dacoits — to do the job in 
shtile. An’ we ran, and they ran, shplittin’ with 
laughin’, till we gets near the jhil — and ’ears sounds 
of distress floatin’ molloncally on the lieavenin’ 
hair.” [Ortheris was growing poetical under the 
influence of the beer. The duet recommenced; 
Mulvaney leading again.] 

“ Thin we heard Bhuldoo, the dacoit, shoutin’ to 
the hekka man, an’ wan of the young diviis brought 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


his lakri down on the top av the hekkarC over, an’ 
Benira Thrigg inside howled c Murther an’ Deaths 
Bhuldoo takes the reins and dhrives like mad for 
the jhil, havin’ dishpersed the A^M^-dhriver — ’oo 
cum up to us an’ ’e sez, sez ’e : — c That Sahib's nigh 
gcwbry with funk! Wot devil’s work ’ave you led 
me into ? ’ ‘ Hall right,’ sez we, ‘ you puckrow 

that there pony an’ come along. This Sahib's been 
decoited, an’ we’re going to resky ’im ! ’ Says the 
driver: ‘Decoits! Wotdecoits? That’s Bhuldoo 
the budmash ’ — ‘ Bhuldoo be shot ! ’ sez we. 1 ’Tis a 
woild dissolute Pathan frum the hills. There’s 
about eight av ’im coercin’ the Sahib . You remim- 
ber that an’ you’ll get another rupee ! * Then we 
heard the whop-whop-whop av the hekka turnin’ over, 
an’ a splash av watter an’ the voice av Benira Thrigg 
callin’ upon God to forgive his sins — an’ Bhuldoo 
an’ ’is friends squotterin’ in the water like boys in 
the Serpentine.” 

Here the Three Musketeers retired simultaneously 
into the beer. 

“ Well ? What came next ? ” said I. 

“ Fwhat nex’?” answered Mulvaney, wiping his 
mouth. “ Wud you let three bould sodger-bhoys 
lave the ornamint av the House av Lords to be 
dhrowned an’ dacoited in a jhil f We formed line 
av quarther-column an’ we desinded upon the inimy. 
For the better part av tin minutes you could not 
hear yerself spake. The tattoo was screamin’ in 
chune wid Benira Thrigg an’ Bhuldoo’s army, an’ 
the shticks was whistlin’ roun’ the hekka , an’ Orth- 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS. 


77 


? ris was oeatin’ the hekkar cover wid his fistes, an* 
Learoyd yellin’ : — ‘ Look out for their knives ! ’ an’ 
me cuttin’ into the dark, right an’ lef T , dishpersin' 
arrmy corps av Pathans. Holy Mother av Moses ! 
’twas moredisp’rit than Ahmid Kheyl wid Maiwund 
thrown in. Afther a while Bhuldoo an’ his bhoys 
flees. Have ye iver seen a rale live Lord thryin’ 
to hide his nobility undher a fut an’ a half av brown 
jhil wather? ’Tis the livin’ image av a bhisti's mus- 
sich wid the shivers. It tuk toime to pershuade me 
frind Benira he was not disimbo wiled : an’ more 
toime to get out the Kekka . The dhriver come up 
afther the battle, swearin’ he tuk a hand in repul- 
sin’ the inimy. Benira was sick wid the fear. We 
escorted him back, very slow, to cantonmints, for 
that an’ the chill to soak into him. It suk / Glory 
be to the Rigimintil Saint, but it suk to the marrow 
av Lord Benira Thrigg ! ” 

Here Ortheris, slowly, with immense pride: — 
“’Esez: — ‘You har my noble preservers,’ sez ’e. 
‘ You har a Aonor to the British Harmy,’ sez e*. 
With that ’e describes the hawful band of decoits 
wot set on ’im. There was about forty of ’em an’ 
’e was hoverpowered by numbers, so ’e was ; but ’e 
never lost ’is presence of mind, so ’e didn’t. ’E guv 
the hekkaAriveY five rupees for ’is noble hassistance, 
an’ ’e said ’e would see to us after ’e ’ad spoken to 
the KernuL For we was a Aonor to the Regiment, 
we was.” 

“ An’ we three,” said Mulvaney, with a seraphic 
smile, “have dhrawn the par-ti-cu-lar attinshin av 


78 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Bobs Bahadur more than wanst. But he’s a rale 
good little man is Bobs. Go on, Orth’ris, me son.” 

“ Then we leaves ’im at the Kernul’s ’ouse, werry 
sick, an’ we cuts over to B Comp’ny barrick an’ we sez 
we ’ave saved Benira from a bloody doom, an’ the 
chances was agin there bein’ p’raid on Thursday. 
About ten minutes later come three envelicks, one 
for each of us. S’elp me Bob, if the old bloke ’adn’t 
guv us a fiver apiece — sixty-four dibs in the bazar ! 
On Thursday ’e was in ’orspital recoverin’ from ’s 
sanguinary encounter with a gang of Pathans, an’ B 
Comp’ny was drinkin’ ’emselves inter clink by 
squads. So there never was no Thursdy p’raid. 
But the Kernul, when ’e ’eard of our galliant con- 
duct, ’e sez : — 4 Hi know there’s been some devilry 
soraewheres,’ sez ’e , 4 but hi can’t bring it ’ome to 
you three.’ ” 

44 An’ my privit imprisshin is,” said Mulvaney, get- 
ting off the bar and turning his glass upside down, 
44 that, av they had known they wudn’t have brought 
ut home. ’Tis fly in’ in the face, firstly av Nature, 
second, av the Big’lations, an’ third, the will av 
Terence Mulvaney, to hold p’rades av Thursdays.” 

44 Good, ma son ! ” said Learoyd : 44 but, young 
mon, what’s t’ notebook for ? ” 

44 Let be,” said Mulvaney ; 4k this time next month 
we’re in the Sherajpis. ’Tis immortial fame the 
gentleman’s goin’ to give us. But kape it dhark 
till we’re out av the range av me little frind Bobs 
Bahadur.” 

And I have obeyed Mulvaney’s order 


HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 


79 


HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 

Then a pile of heads be laid — 

Thirty thousand heaped on high— 

All to please the Kafir maid, 

Where the Oxus ripples by. 

Grimly spake Atulla Khan : — 

“ Love hath made this thing a Man.” 

Oatta's Story. 

If you go straight away from Levees and Govern- 
ment House Lists, past Trades’ Balls — far beyond 
everything and everybody you ever knew in your 
respectable life — you cross, in time, the Borderline 
where the last drop of White blood ends and the 
full tide of Black sets in. It would be easier to 
talk to a new-made Duchess on the spur of the mo- 
ment than to the Borderline folk without violating 
some of their conventions or hurting their feelings. 
The Black and the White mix very quaintly in their 
ways. Sometimes the White shows in spurts of 
fierce, childish pride — which is Pride of Race run 
crooked — and sometimes the Black in still fiercer 
abasement and humility, half heathenish customs 
and strange, unaccountable impulses to crime. One 
of these days, this people — understand they are far 
lower than the class whence Derozio, the man who 
imitated Byron, sprung — will turn out a writer or 
a poet ; and then we shall know how they live and 


80 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

what they feel. In the mean time, any stories about 
them cannot be absolutely correct in fact or in- 
ference. 

Miss Yezzis came from across the Borderline to 
look after some children who belonged to a lady un- 
til a regularly ordained nurse could come out. The 
lady said Miss Yezzis was a bad, dirty nurse and in- 
attentive. It never struck her that Miss Yezzis had 
her own life to lead and her own affairs to worry 
over, and that these affairs were the most important 
things in the world to Miss Yezzis. Yery few mis- 
tresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss Yezzig 
was as black a,s a boot, and to our standard of taste, 
hideously ugly. She wore cotton-print gowns and 
bulged shoes ; and when she lost her temper with the 
children, she abused them in the language of the Bor- 
derline — which is part English, part Portuguese, and 
part Native. She was not attractive ; but she had her 
pride, and she preferred being called “ Miss Yezzis.” 

Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and 
went to see her Mamma, who lived, for the most 
part, on an old cane chair in a greasy fa^swr-silk 
dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house 
full of Yezzises, Pereiras, Bibieras, Lisboas and Gon- 
salveses, and a floating population of loafers ; be- 
sides fragments of the day’s bazar , garlic, stale in- 
cense, clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats hung 
on strings for screens, old bottles, pewter crucifixes, 
dried immortelles , pariah puppies, plaster images of 
the Yirgin, and hats without crowns.- Miss Yezzis 
drew twenty rupees a month for acting as nurse, 


HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 


81 








and she squabbled weekly with her Mamma as to 
the percentage to be given towards housekeeping. 
When the quarrel was over, Michele D’Cruze used 
to shamble across the low mud wall of the compound 
and make love to Miss Vezzis after the fashion of 
the Borderline, which is hedged about with much 
ceremony. Michele was a poor, sickly weed and 
very black ; but he had his pride. He would not 
be seen smoking a huqa for anything ; and he looked 
down on natives as only a man with seven-eighths 
native blood in his veins can. The Yezzis Family 
had their pride too. They traced their descent 
from a mythical plate-layer who had worked on the 
Sone Bridge when railways were new in India, and 
they valued their English origin. Michele was a 
Telegraph Signaler on Bs. 35 a month. The fact 
that he was in Government employ made Mrs. Yez- 
zis lenient to the shortcomings of his ancestors. 

There was a compromising legend — Dom Anna 
the tailor brought it from Poonani — that a black 
J ew of Cochin had once married into the D’Cruze 
family ; while it was an open secret that an uncle 
of Mrs. D’Cruze was at that very time doing menial 
work, connected with cooking, for a Club in South- 
ern India! He sent Mrs. D’Cruze seven rupees 
eight annas a month ; but she felt the disgrace to 
the family very keenly all the same. 

However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. 
Yezzis brought herself to overlook these blemishes 
and gave her consent to the marriage of her daughter 
with Michele, on condition that Michele should 
6 


82 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

have at least fifty rupees a month to start married 
life upon. This wonderful prudence must have 
been a lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer’s 
Yorkshire blood ; for across the Borderline people 
take a pride in marrying when they please — not 
when they can. 

Having regard to his departmental prospects, 
Miss Yezzis might as well have asked Michele to go 
away and come back with the Moon in his pocket. 
But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Yezzis, 
and that helped him to endure. He accompanied 
Miss Yezzis to Mass one Sunday, and after Mass, 
walking home through the hot stale dust with her 
hand in his, he swore by several Saints whose names 
would not interest you, never to forget Miss Yezzis ; 
and she swore by her Honor and the Saints — the 
oath runs rather curiously ; “ In nomine Sanctis - 
simce — ” (whatever the name of the she-Saint is) 
and so forth, ending with a kiss on the fore- 
head, a kiss on the left cheek, and a kiss on the 
mouth — never to forget Michele. 

JSText week Michele was transferred, and Miss 
Yezzis dropped tears upon the window-sash of the 
“ Intermediate ” compartment as he left the Station. 

If you look at the telegraph-map of India you will 
see a long line skirting the coast from Backergunge 
to Madras. Michele was ordered to Tibasu, a little 
Sub-office one-third down this line, to send messages 
on from Berhampur to Chicacola, and to think of 
Miss Yezzis and his chances of getting fifty rupees 
a month out of office-hours. He had the noise of 


HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 


83 


the Bay of Bengal and a Bengali Babu for com- 
pany ; nothing more. He sent foolish letters, with 
crosses tucked inside the flaps of the envelopes, to 
Miss Yezzis. 

When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three 
weeks his chance came. 

Never forget that unless the outward and visible 
signs of Our Authority are always before a native 
he is as incapable as a child of understanding what 
authority means, or where is the danger of disobey- 
ing it. Tibasu was a forgotten little place with a 
few Orissa Mahomedans in it. These, hearing noth- 
ing of the Co\\e>ctoY-Sahib for some time and heartily 
despising the Hindu Sub- Judge, arranged to start 
a little Mohurrum riot of their own. But the Hin- 
dus turned out and broke their heads ; when find- 
ing lawlessness pleasant, Hindus and Mahomedans 
together raised an aimless sort of Donn}^ brook just 
to see how far they could go. They looted each 
other’s shops, and paid off private grudges in the 
regular way. It was a nasty little riot, but not 
worth putting in the newspapers. 

Michele was working in his office when he heard 
the sound that a man never forgets all his life — the 
“ ah-yah” of an angry crowd. [When that sound 
drops about three tones, and changes to a thick, 
droning ut, the man who hears it had better go 
away if he is alone.] The Native Police Inspector 
ran in and told Michele that the town was in an 
uproar and coming to wreck the Telegraph Office. 
The Babu put on his cap and quietly dropped out 


84 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


of the window ; while the Police Inspector, afraid, 
but obeying the old race-instinct which recognizes 
a drop of White blood as far it can be diluted, 
said : — “ What orders does the Sahib give ? ” 

The “ Sahib ” decided Michele. Though horribly 
frightened, he felt that, for the hour, he, the man 
with the Cochin Jew and the menial uncle in his 
pedigree, was the only representative of English 
authority in the place. Then he thought of Miss 
Yezzis and the fifty rupees, and took the situation 
on himself. There were seven native policemen in 
Tibasu, and four crazy smooth-bore muskets among 
them. All the men were gray with fear, but not 
beyond leading. Michele dropped the key of the 
telegraph instrument, and went out, at the head of 
his army, to meet the mob. As the shouting crew 
came round a corner of the road, he dropped and 
fired ; the men behind him loosing instinctively at 
the same time. 

The whole crowd — curs to the backbone — yelled 
and ran ; leaving one man dead, and another dying 
in the road. Michele was sweating with fear, but 
he kept his weakness under, and went down into 
the town, past the house where the Sub- Judge had 
barricaded himself. The streets were empty. Th 
basu was more frightened than Michele, for the mol 
had been taken at the right time. 

Michele returned to the Telegraph-Office, and 
sent a message to Chicacola asking for help. Be- 
fore an answer came, he received a deputation of 
the elders of Tibasu, telling him that the Sub- Judge 


HIS CHANCE IN LIFE. 


85 


said his actions generally were “ unconstitutional/’ 
and trying to bully him. But the heart of Michele 
D’Cruze was big and white in his breast, because of 
his love for Miss Yezzis, the nurse-girl, and because 
he had tasted for the first time Responsibility and 
Success. Those two make an intoxicating drink, 
and have ruined more men than ever has Whisky. 
Michele answered that the Sub-Judge might say 
what he pleased, but, until the Assistant Collector 
came, the Telegraph Signaler was the Government 
of India in Tibasu, and the elders of the town would 
be held accountable for further rioting. Then they 
bowed their heads and said : — “ Show mercy ! ” or 
words to that effect, and went back in great fear ; 
each accusing the other of having begun the rioting. 

Early in the dawn, after a night’s patrol with his 
seven policemen, Michele went down the road, 
musket in hand, to meet the Assistant Collector who 
had ridden in to quell Tibasu. But, in the presence 
of this young Englishman, Michele felt himself 
slipping back more and more into the native, and 
the tale of the Tibasu Riots ended, with the strain 
on the teller, in an hysterical outburst of tears, bred 
by sorrow that he had killed a man, shame that he 
could not feel as uplifted as he had felt through the 
night, and childish anger that his tongue could not 
do justice to his great deeds. It was the White 
drop in Michele’s veins dying out, though he did 
not know it. 

But the Englishman understood ; and, after he 
had schooled those men of Tibasu, and had conferred 


86 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

with the Sub- Judge till that excellent official turned 
green, he found time to draught an official letter 
describing the conduct of Michele. Which letter 
filtered through the proper Channels, and ended in 
the transfer of Michele up-country once more, on the 
Imperial salary of sixty-six rupees a month. 

So he and Miss Yezzis were married with great 
state and ancientry ; and now there are several little 
D’Cruzes sprawling about the verandas of the 
Central Telegraph Office. 

But, if the whole revenue of the Department he 
serves were to be his reward, Michele could never, 
never repeat what he did at Tibasu for the sake of 
Miss Yezzis the nurse-girl. 

Which proves that, when a man does good work 
out of all proportion to his pay, in seven cases out 
of nine there is a woman at the back of the virtue. 

The two exceptions must have suffered from sun- 
stroke. 


WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. 


87 


WATCHES OF THE HIGHT. 

What is ii?. the Brahmin’s books that is in the Brahmin’s 
heart. Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the 
world. 

Hindu Proverb. 

This began in a practical joke ; but it has gone 
for enough now, and is getting serious. 

Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Water- 
bury watch and a plain leather guard. 

The Colonel had a Water bury watch also, and for 
guard, the lip-strap of a curb-chain. Lip-straps 
make the best watch guards. They are strong and 
short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary leather 
guard there is no great difference ; between one 
Waterburv watch and another none at all. Every 
one in the station knew the Colonel’s lip-strap. He 
was not a horsey man, but he liked people to be- 
lieve he had been one once ; and he wove fantastic 
stories of the hunting-bridle to which this particular 
lip-strap had belonged. Otherwise he was painfully 
religious. 

Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club 
— both late for their engagements, and both in a 
hurry. That was Kismet. The two watches were 
on a shelf below the looking-glass — guards hanging 
down. That was carelessness. Platte changed 


88 PLaIN tales from the hills. 

first, snatched a watch, looked in the glass, settled 
his tie, and ran. Forty seconds later, the Colonel 
did exactly the same thing ; each man taking the 
other’s watch. 

You may have noticed that many religious people 
are deeply suspicious. They seem— for purely re- 
ligious purposes, of course — to know more about 
iniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they were 
specially bad before they became converted? At 
any rate, in the imputation of things evil, and in 
putting the worst construction on things innocent, 
a certain type of good people may be trusted to 
surpass all others. The Colonel and his Wife were 
of that type. But the Colonel’s Wife w r as the worst. 
She manufactured the Station scandal, and — talked 
to her ayah ! Nothing more need be said. The 
Colonel’s Wife broke up the Laplace’s home. The 
Colonel’s Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engage- 
ment. The Colonel’s Wife induced young Buxton 
to keep his wife down in the Plains through the 
first year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs. 
Buxton died, and the baby with her. These things 
will be remembered against the Colonel’s Wife so 
long as there is a regiment in the country. 

But to come back to the Colonel and Platte. 
They went their several ways from the dressing- 
room. The Colonel dined with two Chaplains, 
while Platte went to a bachelor-party, and whist to 
follow. 

Mark how things happen ! If Platte’s sais had 
put the new saddle-pad on the mare, the butts of 


WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. 


89 


the territs would not have worked through the 
worn leather, and the old pad into the mare’s 
withers, when she was coming home at two o’clock 
in the morning She would not have reared, bolted, 
fallen into a ditch, upset the cart, arid sent Platte 
hying over an aloe -hedge on to Mrs. Larky n’s well- 
kept lawn ; and this tale would never have been 
written. But the mare did all these things, and 
while Platte was rolling over and over on the turf, 
like a shot rabbit the watch and guard flew from his 
waistcoat — as an Infantry Major’s sword hops out 
of the scabbard when they are firing a feu dejoie — 
and rolled and rolled in the moonlight, till it stopped 
under a window. 

Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put 
the cart straight, and went home. 

Mark again how Kismet works ! This would not 
happen once in a hundred years. Towards the end 
of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel 
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to 
look at some Mission Reports. The bar of the 
watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and 
the watch — Platte’s watch— slid quietly on to the 
carpet. Where the bearer found it next morn- 
ing and kept it. 

Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his 
bosom ; but the driver of the carriage was drunk 
and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at an 
unseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted. 
If the Colonel’s Wife had been an ordinary “ vessel 
of wrath appointed for destruction,” she would have 
4 


90 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


known that when a man stays away on purpose, 
his excuse is always sound and original. The very 
baldness of the Colonel’s explanation proved its 
truth. 

See once more the workings of Kismet ! The 
Colonel’s watch, which came with Platte hurriedly 
on to Mrs. Larkyn’s lawn, chose to stop just under 
Mrs. Larkyn’s window, where she saw it early in 
the morning, recognized it, and picked it up. She 
had heard the crash of Platte’s cart at two o’clock 
that morning, and his voice calling the mare names. 
She knew Platte and liked him. That day she 
showed him the watch and heard his story. He put 
his head on one side, winked and said : — “ How dis- 
gusting! Shocking old man! With his religious 
training, too! I should send the watch to the 
Colonel’s Wife and ask for explanations.” 

Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the La* 
places — whom she had known when Laplace and his 
wife believed in each other — and answered : — “ I will 
send it. I think it will do her good. But, remem- 
ber, we must never tell her the truth.” 

Platte guessed that his own watch was in the 
Colonel’s possession, and thought that the return of 
the lip-strapped Waterbury with a soothing note 
from Mrs. Larkyn would merely create a small 
trouble for a few minutes. Mrs. Larkyn knew 
better. She knew that any poison dropped would 
find good holding-ground in the heart of the Colonel’s 
Wife. 

The packet, and a note containing a few remarks 


WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. 


91 


on the Colonel’s calling-hours, were sent over to the 
Colonel’s Wife, who wept in her own room and 
took counsel with herself. 

If there was one woman under Heaven whom the 
Colonel’s Wife hated with holy fervor, it was Mrs. 
Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous lady, and 
called the Colonel’s Wife “ old cat.’’ The Colonel’s 
Wife said that somebody in Revelations was remark- 
ably like Mrs. Larkyn. She mentioned other Scrip- 
ture people as well. From the Old Testament. 
[But the Colonel’s Wife was the only person who 
cared or dared to say anything against Mrs. Larkyn. 
Every one else accepted her as an amusing, honest 
little body.] Wherefore, to believe that her husband 
had been shedding watches under that “ Thing’s ” 
window at ungodly hours, coupled with the fact of 
his late arrival on the previous night, was. ..... 

At this point she rose up and sought her husband. 
He denied everything except the ownership of the 
watch. She besought him, for his Soul’s sake, to 
speak the truth. He denied afresh, with two bad 
words. Then a stony silence held the Colonel’s 
Wife, while a man could draw his breath five times. 

The speech that followed is no affair of mine or 
yours. It was made up of wifely and womanly jeal- 
ousy ; knowledge of old age and sunken cheeks ; 
deep mistrust born of the text that says even little 
babies’ hearts are as bad as they make them ; ran- 
corous hatred of Mrs. Larkyn, and the tenets of 
the creed of the Colonel’s Wife’s upbringing. 

Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped 

i 


92 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILI£. 

Waterbury, ticking away in the palm of her shak« 
ing, withered hand. At that hour, I think, the Colo* 
nel’s Wife realized a little of the restless suspicion 
she had injected into old Laplace’s mind, a little of 
poor Miss Haughtrey ’s misery, and some of the canker 
that ate into Buxton’s heart as he watched his wife 
dying before his eyes. The Colonel stammered and 
tried to explain. Then he remembered that his 
watch had disappeared ; and the mystery grew 
greater. The Colonel’s Wife talked and prayed by 
turns till she was tired, and went away to devise 
means for “ chastening the stubborn heart of her 
husband.” Which translated, means, in our slang, 
“ tail-twisting.” 

You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine 
of Original Sin, she could not believe in the face of 
appearances. She knew too much, and jumped to 
the wildest conclusions. 

But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she 
had spoilt the life of the Laplaces. She had lost her 
faith in the Colonel, and — here the creed-suspicion 
came in — he might, she argued, have erred many 
times, before a meroiful Providence, at the hands of 
so unworthy an instrument as Mrs. Larky n, had 
established his guilt. He was a bad, wicked, gray- 
haired profligate. This may sound too sudden a 
revulsion for a long-wedded wife ; but it is a vener- 
able fact that, if a man or woman makes a practise 
of, and takes a delight in, believing and spreading 
evil of people indifferent to him or her, he or she 
will end in believing evil of folk very near and dear 


WATCHES OF THE NIGHT, 


93 


Y ou may think, also, that the mere incident of the 
watch was too small and trivial to raise this misun- 
derstanding. It is another aged fact that, in life as 
well as racing, all the worst accidents happen at 
little ditches and cut-down fences. In the same 
way, you sometimes see a woman who would have 
made a Joan of Arc in another century and climate, 
threshing herself to pieces over all the mean worry 
of housekeeping. But that is another story. 

Her belief only made the Colonel’s Wife more 
wretched, because it insisted so strongly on the 
villainy of men. Remembering what she had done, 
it was pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the 
penny-farthing attempts she made to hide it from the 
Station. But the Station knew and laughed heart- 
lessly ; for they had heard the story of the watch, 
with much dramatic gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn’s 
lips. 

Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, seeing 
that the Colonel had not cleared himself : — “ This 
thing has gone far enough. I move we tell the 
Colonel’s Wife how it happened.” Mrs. Larkyn 
shut her lips and shook her head, and vowed that 
the Colonel’s Wife must bear her punishment as 
best she could. How Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous 
woman, in whom none would have suspected deep 
hate. So Platte took no action, and came to believe 
gradually from the Colonel’s silence, that the Colo- 
nel must have u run off the line ” somewhere that 
night, and, therefore, preferred to stand sentence on 
the lesser count of rambling into other people’s 


94 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

compounds out of calling-hours. Platte forgot 
about the watch business after a while, and moved 
down-country with his regiment. Mrs. Larkyn 
went home when her husband’s tour of Indian ser- 
vice expired. She never forgot. 

But Platte was quite right when he said that the 
joke had gone too far. The mistrust and the 
tragedy of it — which we outsiders cannot see and 
do not believe in — are killing the Colonel’s Wife, 
and are making the Colonel wretched. If either of 
them read this story, they can depend upon its 
being a fairly true account of the case, and can 
“ kiss and make friends.” 

Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching 
an Engineer being shelled by his own Battery. ISTow 
this shows that poets should not write about what 
they do not understand. Any one could have told 
him that Sappers and Gunners are perfectly different 
branches of tte Service. But, if you correct the 
sentence, and substitute Gunner for Sapper, the 
moral comes just the same. 


THE OTHER MAX. 


95 


THE OTHER MAK 

When the earth was sick and the skies were gray, 

And the woods were rotted with rain, 

The Dead Man rode through the autumn day 
To visit his love again. 

Old Ballad . 

Ear back in the “ seventies,” before they had 
built any Public Offices at Simla, and the broad 
road around Jakko lived in a pigeon-hole in the 
P. W. D. hovels, her parents made Miss Gaurey mar- 
ry Colonel Schriederling. He could not have been 
much more than thirty -five years her senior ; and, 
as he lived on two hundred rupees a month and had 
money of his own, he was well off. He belonged to 
good people, and suffered in the cold weather from 
lung complaints. In the hot weather he dangled 
on the brink of heat-apoplexy ; but it never quite 
killed him. 

Understand, I do not blame Schreiderling. He 
was a good husband according to his lights, and his 
temper only failed him when he was being nursed. 
Which was some seventeen days in each month. 
He was almost generous to his wife about money 
matters, and that, for him, was a concession. Still 
Mrs. Schreiderling was not happy. They married 
her when she was this side of twenty and had given 


96 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


all her poor little heart to another man. I have 
forgotten his name, but we will call him the Other 
Man. He had no money and no prospects. He was 
not even good-looking ; and I think he was in the 
Commissariat or Transport. But, in spite of all 
these things, she loved him very badly ; and there 
was some sort of an engagement between the two 
when Schreiderling appeared and told Mrs. Gaurej 
that he wished to marry her daughter. Then the 
other engagement was broken off — washed away by 
Mrs. Gaurey’s tears, for that lady governed her 
house by weeping over disobedience to her authority 
and the lack of reverence she received in her old 
age. The daughter did not take after her mother. 
She never cried. Not even at the wedding. 

The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was 
transferred to as bad a station as he could find. 
Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered 
from intermittent fever, and that may have dis- 
tracted him from his other trouble. He was weak 
about the heart also. Both ways. One of the 
valves was affected, and the fever made it worse. 
This showed itself later on. 

Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling 
took to being ill. She did not pine away like people 
in story books, but she seemed to pick up every 
form of illness that went about a station, from 
simple fever upwards. She was never more than 
ordinarily pretty at the best of times; and the ill- 
ness made her ugly. Schreiderling said so. He 
prided himself on speaking his min d 


THE OTHER MAN. 


97 


W'hen she ceased being pretty, he left her to her 
3wn devices, and went back to the lairs of his bach- 
elordom. She used to trot up and do wn Simla Mall 
in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well 
on the back of her head, and a shocking bad saddle 
under her. Schreider ling’s generosity stopped at 
the horse. He said that any saddle would do for 
a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling, She 
never was asked to dance, because she did not dance 
well ; and she was so dull and uninteresting, that 
her box very seldom had any cards in it. Schreider- 
ling said that if he had known that she was goingto 
be such a scare-crow after her marriage, he would 
never have married her. He always prided himself 
on speaking his mind, did Schreiderling ! 

He left her at Simla one August, and went down 
to his regiment. Then she revived a little, but she 
never recovered her looks. I found out at the Club 
that the Other Man is coming up sick — very sick — 
on an off chance of recovery. The fever and the 
heart- valves had nearly killed him. She knew that, 
too, and she knew— what I had no interest in know- 
ing— when he was coming up. I suppose he wrote 
to tell her. They had not seen each other since a 
month before the wedding. And here comes the 
unpleasant part of the story. 

A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel 
till dusk one evening. Mrs. Schreiderling had been 
flitting up and down the Mall all the afternoon in 
the rain. Coming up along the Cart-road, a tonga 
passed me. and my pony, tired with standing so 
7 


98 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


long, set off at a canter. Just by the road down to 
the Tonga Office Mrs. Schreiderling, dripping from 
head to foot, was waiting for the tonga. I turned 
up-hill, as the tonga was no affair of mine ; and just- 
then she began to shriek. I went back at once and 
saw, under the Tonga Office lamps, Mrs. Sckreider 
ling kneeling in the wet road by the back seat of the 
newly-arrived tonga, screaming hideously. Then 
she fell face down in the dirt as I came up. 

Sitting in the back seat, very square and firm, 
with one hand on the awning-stanchion and the wet 
pouring off his hat and mustache, was the Other 
Man — dead. The sixty-mile up-hill jolt had been 
too much for his valve, I suppose. The tonga-driver 
said : — “ The Sahib died two stages out of Solon. 
Therefore, I tied him with a rope, lest he should fall 
out by the way, and so came to Simla. Will the 
Sahib give me bakshish f It” pointing to the Other 
Man, “ should have given one rupee.” 

The Other Man sat with a grin on his face, as if 
he enjoyed the joke of his arrival ; and Mrs. Schrei- 
derling, in the mud, began to groan. There was 
no one except us four in the office and it was rain- 
ing heavily. The first thing was to take Mrs. 
Schriederling home, and the second was to prevent 
ner name from being mixed up with the affair. 
The tonga-driver received five rupees to find a bazar 
’rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling. He was to tell 
the tonga Babu afterwards of the Other Man, and the 
Babu was to make such arrangements as seemed best. 

Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed oat 


THE OTHER MAN. 


99 


of the rain, and for three-quarters of an hour we two 
waited for the ’rickshaw. The Other Man was left 
exactly as he had arrived. Mrs. Schreiderling 
would do everything but cry, which might have 
helped her. She tried to scream as soon as her 
lenses came back, and then she began praying for 
the Other Man’s soul. Had she not been as honest 
as the day, she would have prayed for her own soul 
too. I waited to hear her do this, but she did not. 
Then 1 tried to get some of the mud off her habit. 
Lastly, the ’rickshaw came, and I got her away — 
partly by force. It was a terrible business from 
beginning to end ; but most of all when the ’rickshaw 
had to squeeze between the wall and the tonga, and 
she saw by the lamp-light that thin, yellow hand 
grasping the awning-stanchion. 

She was taken home just as every one was going 
to a dance at Viceregal Lodge — “ Peterhoff ” it was 
then — and the doctor found out that she had fallen 
from her horse, that I had picked her up at the back 
of Jakko, and really deserved great credit for the 
prompt manner in which I had secured medical aid. 
She did not die — men of Schreiderling’s stamp 
marry women who don’t die easily. They live and 
grow ugly. 

She never told of her one meeting, since her 
marriage, with the Other Man ; and,, when the 
chill and cough following the exposure of that 
evening, allowed her abroad, she never by word or 
sign alluded to having met me by the Tonga Qiiioe. 
Perhaps she never knew. 


100 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HUAS. 

She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that 
shocking bad saddle, looking as if she expected to 
meet some one round the corner every minute. Two 
years afterward, she went Home, and died — at 
Bournemouth, I think. 

Schriederling, when he grew maudlin at Mess, 
used to talk about “ my poor dear wife.” He always 
set great store on speaking his mind, did Sehrei- 
derling ! 


CONSEQUENCES. 


101 


CONSEQUENCES. 

Rosicrucian subtleties 
In the Orient had rise ; 

Ye may find their teachers still 
Under Jacatala’s Hill. 

Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus, 

Read what Flood the Seeker tells ns 
Of the Dominant that runs 
Through the cycles of the Sun s — 

Read my story last and see 
Luna at her apogee. 

There are yearly appointments, and two-yearly 
appointments, and five-yearly appointments at Simla, 
and there are, or used to be, permanent appoint- 
ments, whereon you stayed up for the term of your 
natural life and secured red cheeks and a nice in- 
come. Of course, you could descend in the cold 
weather ; for Simla is rather dull then. 

Tarrion came from goodness knows where — all 
away and away in some forsaken part of Central 
India, where they call Pachmari a “ Sanitarium,” 
and drive behind trotting bullocks, I believe. He 
belonged to a regiment ; but what he really wanted to 
do was to escape from his regiment and live in Simla 
forever and ever. He had no preference for any- 
thing in particular, beyond a good horse and a nice 
partner. He thought he could do everything well ; 


102 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


which is a beautiful belief when you hold it with all 
your heart. He was clever in many ways, and 
good to look at, and always made people round him 
comfortable — even in Central India. 

So he went up to Simla, and, because he was 
clever and amusing, he gravitated naturally to Mrs. 
Hauksbee, who could forgive everything but stu- 
pidity. Once he did her great service by changing 
the date on an invitation-card for a big dance 
which Mrs. Hauksbee wished to attend, but couldn’t 
because she had quarreled with the A.-D.-C., who 
took care, being a mean man, to invite her to a 
small dance on the 6th instead of the big Ball of the 
26th. It was a very clever piece of forgery ; and 
when Mrs. Iiaukbee showed the A.-D.-C. her invita- 
tion-card, and chaffed him mildly for not better 
managing his vendettas, he really thought that he 
had made a mistake ; and — which was wise — realized 
that it was no use to fight with Mrs. Hauksbee. 
She was grateful to Tarrion and asked what she 
could do for him. He said simply : “ I’m a Free- 
lance up here on leave, on the look-out for what I 
can loot. I haven’t a square inch of interest in all 
Simla. My name isn’t known to any man with an 
appointment in his gift, and I want an appointment 
— a good, sound, pukka, one. I believe you can do 
anything you turn yourself to. Will you help me ? ” 
Mrs. Hauksbee thought for a minute, and passed the 
lash of her riding-whip through her lips, as was her 
custom when thinking. Then her eyes sparkled and 
she said : — “ I will ; ” and she shook hands on it. 


CONSEQUENCES. 


103 


Tarrion, having perfect confidence in this great 
woman, took no further thought of the business at 
all. Except to wonder what sort of an appointment 
he would win. 

Mrs. Hauksbee began calculating the price of ail 
the Heads of Departments and Members of Council 
she knew, and the more she thought the more she 
laughed, because her heart was in the game and it 
amused her. Then she took a Civil List and ran 
over a few of the appointments. There are some 
beautiful appointments in the Civil List. Eventu- 
ally, she decided that, though Tarrion was too good 
for the Political Department, she had better begin 
by trying to get him in there. What were her own 
plans to this end, does not matter in the least, for 
Luck or Fate played into her hands and she had 
nothing to do but to watch the course of events and 
take the credit of them. 

All Yiceroys, when they first come out, pass 
through the “ Diplomatic Secrecy ” craze. It wears 
off in time; but they all catch it in the beginning, 
because they are new to the country. The particular 
Viceroy who was suffering from the complaint just 
then— this was a long time ago, before Lord Dufferin 
ever came from Canada, or Lord Ripon from the 
bosom of the English Church — had it very badly; 
and the result was that men who were new to keep- 
ing official secrets went about looking unhappy ; and 
the Viceroy plumed himself on the way in which 
he had instilled notions of reticence into his staff. 

Now, the Supreme Government have a careless 


104 : 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


custom of committing wnat they do to printed papers. 
These papers deal with all sorts of things — from the 
payment of Rs. 200 to a “ secret ” service native, up 
to rebukes administered to Yakils and Motamids of 
Native States, and rather brusque letters to Native 
Princes, telling them to put their houses in order, to 
refrain from kidnaping women, or filling offenders 
with pounded red pepper, and eccentricities of that 
kind. Of course, these things could never be made 
public, because Native Princes never err officially, 
and their States are, officially, as well administered 
as Our territories. Also, the private allowances to 
various queer people are not exactly matters to put 
into newspapers, though they give quaint reading 
sometimes. When the Supreme Government is at 
Simla, these papers are prepared there, and go round 
to the people who ought to see them in office-boxes 
or by post. The principle of secrecy was to that 
Viceroy quite as important as the practise, and he 
held that a benevolent despotism like Ours should 
never allow even little things, such as appointments 
of subordinate clerks, to leak out till the proper time. 
He was always remarkable for his principles. 

There was a very important batch of papers in 
preparation at that time. It had to tra vel from one 
end of Simla to the other by hand. It was not put 
into an official envelope, but a large, square, pale-pink 
one ; the matter being in MS. on soft crinkly paper. 
It was addressed to “ The Head Clerk, etc., etc/ 
Now, between “ The Head Clerk, etc., etc.,” and “ Mm 
Hauksbee” and a flourish, is no very great difference 


CONSEQUENCES. 


105 


if the address be written in a very bad hand, as this 
was. The chaprassi who took the envelope was not 
more of an idiot than most chaprassis. He merely 
forgot where this most unofficial cover was to be 
delivered, and so asked the first Englishman he met, 
who happened to be a man riding down to Annan- 
dale in a great hurry. The Englishman hardly 
looked, said : “ Rauksbee Sahib hi Mem” and went 

on. So did the chaprassi , because that letter was 
the last in stock and he wanted to get his work over- 
There was no book to sign ; he thrust the letter into 
Mrs. Hauksbee’s bearer’s hands and went off to 
smoke with a friend. Mrs. Hauksbee was expecting 
some cut-out pattern things in flimsy paper from a 
friend. As soon as she got the big square packet, 
therefore, she said, “ Oh, the dear creature ! ” and 
tore it open with a paper-knife, and all the MS, en- 
closures tumbled out on the floor. 

Mrs. Hauksbee began reading. I have said the 
batch was rather important. That is quite enough 
for you to know. It referred to some correspond- 
ence, two measures, a peremptory order to a native 
chief, and two dozen other things. Mrs. Hauks- 
bee gasped as she read, for the first glimpse of the 
naked machinery of the Great Indian Government, 
stripped of its casings, and lacquer, and paint, and 
guard-rails, impresses even the most stupid man. 
And Mrs. Hauksbee was a clever woman. She was 
a little afraid at first, and felt as if she had laid hold 
of a lightning-flash by the tail, and did not quite 
know what to do with it There were remarks and 


106 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

initials at the side of the papers ; and some of the 
remarks were rather more severe than the papers. 
The initials belonged to men who are all dead or 
gone now ; but they were great in their day. Mrs. 
Hauksbee read on and thought calmly as she read. 
Then the value of her trove struck her, and she cast 
about for the best method of using it. Then Tarrion 
dropped in, and they read through all the papers 
together, and Tarrion, not knowing how she had 
come by them, vowed that Mrs. Hauksbee was the 
greatest woman on earth. Which I believe was 
true, or nearly so. , 

“ The honest course is always the best,” said Tar- 
rion after an hour and a half of study and conver- 
sation. “ All things considered, the Intelligence 
Branch is about my form. Either that or the For- 
eign Office. I go to lay siege to the High Gods in 
their Temples.” 

He did not seek a little man, or a little big man, 
or a weak Head of a strong Department, but he 
called on the biggest and strongest man that the 
Government owned, and explained that he wanted 
an appointment at Simla on a good salary. The 
compound insolence of this amused the Strong Man, 
and, as he had nothing to do for the moment, he 
listened to the proposals of the audacious Tarrion. 
“You have, I presume, some special qualification, 
besides the gift of self-assertion, for the claims you 
put forward ? ” said the Strong Man. “ That, Sir,” 
said Tarrion, “is for you to judge.” Then he be- 
gan, for he had a good memory, quoting a few of 


CONSEQUENCES. 


107 


the more important notes in the papers — slowly and 
one by one as a man drops chlorodyne into a glass. 
When he had reached the peremptory order — and 
it was a peremptory order — the strong man was 
troubled. 

Tarrion wound up : — “ And I fancy that special 
knowledge of this kind is at least as valuable for, 
*et us say, a berth in the Foreign Office, as the fact 
of being the nephew of a distinguished officer’s 
wife.” That hit the Strong Man hard, for the last 
appointment to the Foreign Office had been by 
black favor, and he knew it. “ I’ll see what I can 
do for you,” said the Strong Man. “Many 
thanks,” said Tarrion. Then he left, and the 
Strong Man departed to see how the appointment 
was to be blocked. 

Followed a pause of eleven days ; with thunders 
and lightnings and much telegraphing. The ap- 
pointment was not a very important one, carrying 
only between Rs. 500 and Rs. 700 a month ; but, as 
the Viceroy said, it was the principle of diplomatic 
secrecy that had to be maintained, and it was more 
than likely that a boy so well supplied with special 
information would be worth translating. So they 
translated him. They must have suspected him, 
though he protested that his information was due 
to singular talents of his own. Row, much of this 
story, including the after-history of the missing en- 
velope, you must fill in for yourself, because there 
are reasons why it cannot be written. If you do 


108 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


not know about things Up Above, you won’t under- 
stand how to fill it in, and you will say it is im- 
possible. 

What the Yiceroy said when Tarrion was intro- 
duced to him was : — “ So, this is the boy who 
‘ rushed ’ the Government of India, is it ? Becollect, 
Sir, that is not done twice.” So he must have known 
something. 

What Tarrion said when he saw his appointment 
gazetted was : — “ If Mrs. Hauksbee were twenty 
years younger, and I her husband, I should be Vice- 
roy of India in fifteen years.” , 

What Mrs. Hauksbee said, when Tarrion thanked 
her, almost with tears in his eyes, was first : — “ I 
told you so ! ” and next, to herself : — “ What fools 
men are ! n 


THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN M’GOGGIN. 109 


THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN 

McGOGGIN. 

Ride with an idle whip, ride with an unused heel. 

But, once in a way, there will come a day 

When the colt must be taught to feel 
The lash that falls, and the curb that galls, and the sting of 
the roweled steel. 

Life’s Handicap. 

This is not a tale exactly. It is a tract ; and I am 
immensely proud of it. Making a tract is a Feat. 

Every man is entitled to his own religious opin- 
ions ; but no man — least of all a junior — has a right 
to thrust these down other men’s throats. The 
Government sends out weird Civilians now and 
again ; but McGoggin was the queerest exported for 
a long time. He was clever — brilliantly clever — 
but his cleverness worked the wrong way. Instead 
of keeping to the study of the vernaculars, he had 
read some books written by a man called Comte, 1 
think, and a man called Spencer, and a Professor 
Clifford. [You will find these books in the 
Library.] They deal with people’s insides from 
the point of view of men who have no stomachs. 
There was no order against his reading them ; but 
his Mamma should have smacked him. They fer- 
mented in his head, and he came out to India with 


110 PLAIN TAI.ES FROM THE HILLS. 

a rarefied religion over and above his work. It was 
not much of a creed. It only proved that men had 
no souls, and there was no God and no hereafter, 
and that you must worry along somehow for the 
good of Humanity. 

One of its minor tenets seemed to be that the one 
thing more sinful than giving an order was obey- 
ing it. At least, that was what McGoggin said ; 
but I suspect he had misread his primers. 

I do not say a word against this creed. It was 
made up in Town where there is nothing but 
machinery and asphalte and building — all shut in 
by the fog. Naturally, a man grows to think that 
there is no one higher than himself, and that the 
Metropolitan Board of Works made everything. 
But in this country, where you really see humanity 
— raw, brown, naked humanity — with nothing be- 
tween it and the blazing sky, and only the used-up, 
over-handled earth underfoot, the notion somehow 
dies away, and most folk come back to simpler 
theories. Life, in India, is not long enough to waste 
in proving that there is no one in particular at the 
head of affairs. For this reason. The Deputy is 
above the Assistant, the Commissioner above the 
Deputy, the Lieutenant-Governor above the Com- 
missioner, and the Viceroy above all four, under the 
orders of the Secretary of State who is responsible 
to the Empress. If the Empress be not responsible 
to her Maker — if there is no Maker for her to be 
responsible to — the entire system of Our adminis- 
tration must be wrong. Which is manifestly impos 


THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN M’GOGGIN. Ill 

sible. At Home men are to be excused. They 
are stalled up a good deal and get intellectually 
“ beany.” When you take a gross, “ beany ” horse 
to exercise, he slavers and slobbers over the bit till 
you can’t see the horns. But the bit is there just 
the same. Men do not get “ beany ” in India. The 
climate and the work are against playing bricks with 
words. 

If McGoggin had kept his creed, with the capital 
letters and the endings in “isms,” to himself, no 
one would have cared: but his grandfathers on 
both sides had been Wesleyan preachers, and 
the preaching strain came out in his mind. He 
wanted every one at the Club to see that they had 
no souls too, and to help him to eliminate his Creator. 
As a good many men told him, he undoubtedly had 
no soul, because he was so young, but it did not 
follow that his seniors were equally undeveloped ; 
and, whether there was another world or not, a man 
still wanted to read his papers in this. “ But that 
is not the point — that is not the point ! ” Aurelian 
used to say. Then men threw sofa-cushions at 
him and told him to go to any particular place he 
might believe in. They christened him the “ Blasto 
derm,” — he said he came from a family of that 
name somewhere, in the pre-historic ages, — and, by 
insult and laughter strove to choke him dumb, for 
he was an unmitigated nuisance at the Club ; be- 
sides being an offense to the older men. His 
Deputy Commissioner, who was working on the 
Frontier when Aurelian was rolling on a bedquilt, 


112 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

told him that, for a clever boy, Aurelian was a very 
big idiot. And, you know, if he had gone on with 
his work, he would have been caught up to the 
Secretariat in a few years. He was just the type 
that goes there — all head, no physique and a hun- 
dred theories. Hot a soul was interested in Mc- 
Goggin’s soul. He might have had two, or none, or 
somebody else’s. His business was to obey orders 
and keep abreast of his files instead of devastating 
the Club with “isms.” 

He worked brilliantly ; but he could not accept 
any order without trying to better it. That was 
the fault of his creed. It made men too responsible 
and left too much to their honor. You can some- 
times ride an old horse in a halter ; but never a colt. 
McGoggin took more trouble over his cases than 
any of the men of his year. He may have fancied 
that thirty-page judgments on fifty-rupee cases — 
both sides perjured to the gullet — advanced the 
cause of Humanity. At any rate, he worked too 
much, and worried and fretted over the rebukes he 
received, and lectured away on his ridiculous creed 
out of office, till the Doctor had to warn him that 
he was overdoing it. Ho man can toil eighteen 
annas in the rupee in June without suffering. But 
McGoggin was still intellectually “beany” and 
proud of himself and his powers, and he would take 
no hint. He worked nine hours a day steadily. 

“ Very well,” said the doctor, “ you’ll break down 
because you are over-engined for your beam.” 
McGoggin was a little chap. 


THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN M’GOGGIN. 113 

One day, the collapse came — as dramatically as if 
it had been meant to embellish a Tract. 

It was just before the Rains. We were sitting in 
the veranda in the dead, hot, close air, gasping and 
praying that the black-blue clouds would let down 
and bring the cool. Very, very far away, there was 
a faint whisper, which was the roar of the Rains 
breaking over the river. One of the men heard it, 
got out of his chair, listened, and said, naturally 
enough : — “ Thank God ! ” 

Then the Blastoderm turned in his place and 
said : — 

“ Why ? I assure you it’s only the result of perfectly 
natural causes — atmospheric phenomena of the 
simplest kind. Why you should, therefore, return 
thanks to a Being who never did exist — who is only 
a figment — ” 

“ Blastoderm,” grunted the man in the next chair, 
“ dry up, and throw me over the Pioneer . W e know 
all about your figments.” The Blastoderm reached 
out to the table, took up one paper, and jumped 
as if something had stung him. Then he handed 
the paper over. 

“ As I was saying,” he went on slowly and with 
an effort — “due to perfectly natural causes per- 
fectly natural causes. I mean — ” 

“Hi! Blastoderm, you’ve give me the Calcutta 
Mercantile Advertiser .” 

The dust got up in little whorls, while the tree-tops 
rocked and the kites whistled. But no one was look- 
ing at the coming of the Rains. We were all 
8 


114 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


staring at the Blastoderm who had risen from his 
chair and was fighting with his speech. Then he 
said, still more slowly : — 

“ Perfectly conceivable dictionary red oak 

amenable cause retaining shuttle- 
cock — — alone.” 

“ Blastoderm’s drunk,” said one man. But the 
Blastoderm was not drunk. He looked at us in a 
dazed sort of way, and began motioning with his 
hands in the half light as the clouds closed over- 
head. Then — with a scream : — 

“ What is it ? Can’t reserve attainable 

market obscure ” 

But his speech seemed to freeze in him, and — just 
as the lightning shot two tongues that cut the whole 
sky into three pieces and the rain fell in quivering 
sheets — the Blastoderm was struck dumb. He stood 
pawing and champing like a hard-held horse, and 
his eyes were full of terror. 

The Doctor came over in three minutes, and heard 
the story. “ It’s aphasia” he said. “ Take him to 
his room. I knew the smash would come.” We 
carried the Blastoderm across, in the pouring rain 
to his quarters, and the Doctor gave him bromide of 
potassium to make him sleep. 

Then the Doctor came back to us and told us that 
aphasia was like all the arrears of “ Punjab Head ” 
falling in a lump ; and that only once before — in the 
case of a sepoy — had he met with so complete a case. 
I myself have been mild aphasia in an overworked 
man, but this sudden dumbness was uncanny — . 


THE CONVERSION OF AURELIAN M’GOGGIN. 115 

though, as the Blastoderm himself might have said, 
due to “ perfectly natural causes.” 

“ He’ll have to take leave after this,” said the 
Doctor ; “ He won’t be fit for work for another 
three months. Ho ; it isn’t insanity or anything like 
it. It’s only complete loss of control over the speech 
and memory. I fancy it will keep the Blastoderm 
quiet, though.” 

Two days later, the Blastoderm found his tongue 
again. The first question he asked was : — “ What 
was it ? ” The Doctor enlightened him. u But I 
can’t understand it ! ” said the Blastoderm ; “ I’m 
quite sane ; but I can’t be sure of my mind, it seems 
— my own memory — can 1 1 ” 

“ Go up into the Hills for three months, and don’t 
think about it,” said the Doctor. 

u But I can’t understand it,” repeated the Blasto- 
derm. “ It was my own mind and memory ” 

“ I can’t help it,” said the Doctor ; “ there are a 
good many things you can’t understand ; and, by 
the time you have put in my length of service, you’ll 
Know exactly how much a man dare call his own in 
this world.” 

The stroke cowed the Blastoderm. He could not 
understand it. He went into the Hills in fear and 
trembling, wondering whether he would be permitted 
to reach the end of any sentence he began. 

This gave him a wholesome feeling of mistrust. 
The legitimate explanation, that he had been over- 
working himself, failed to satisfy him. Something 
had wiped his lips of speech, as a mother wipes the 


116 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

milky lips of her child, and he was afraid — horribly 
afraid. 

So the Club had rest when he returned ; and if 
ever you come across Aurelian McGoggin laying 
down the law on things Human — he doesn’t seem 
to know as much as he used to about things Divine 
— put your forefinger on your lip for a moment, and 
see what happens. 

Don’t blame me if he throws a glass at your 
head! 


/ 


THE TAKING OF LUNGTUNGPEN. 


117 


THE TAKING OF LUNGTUNGPEN. 

** So we loosed a bloomin’ volley* 

And we made the beggars cut, 

An’ when our pouch was emptied out, 

We used the bloomin’ butt, 

Ho ! My 1 

Don’t yer come anigh, 

When Tommy is a playin’ with the baynit an’ the butt.'' 

Barrack Room Ballad . 

My friend Private Mulvaney told me this, sitting 
on the parapet of the road to Dagshai, when we 
were hunting butterflies together. He had theories 
about the Army, and colored clay pipes perfectly. 
He said that the young soldier is the best to work 
with, “ on account av the surpassing innocince av 
the child.” 

“ Now, listen ! ” said Mulvaney, throwing himself 
full length on the wall in the sun. “ Fm a born 
scutt av the barrick-room ! The Army’s mate an 
dhrink to me, bekase I’m wan av the few that can’t 
quit ut. I’ve put in sivinteen years, an’ the pipe* 
clay’s in the marrow av me. Av I cud have kept 
out av wan big dhrink a month, I wud have been a 
Hon’ry Lift’nint by this time — a nuisince to my 
betthers, a laughin’-shtock to my equils, an’ a curse 
to meself. Bein’ fwhat I am, I’m Privit Mulvaney, 
wid no good-conduc’ pay an’ a devourin’ thirst. 


118 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Always barrin’ me little frind Bobs Bahadur, I know 
as much about the Army as most men.” 

I said something here. 

“ Wolseley be shot! Betune you an’ me an’ that 
butterfly-net, he’s a ramblin’, incoherint sort av a 
divil, wid wan oi on the Quane an’ the Coort, and 
the other on his blessed silf — everlastin’ly playing 
Saysar an’ Alexandrier row led into a lump Now 
Bobs is a sinsible little man. Wid Bobs an’ a few 
three-year-olds, I’d swape any army av the earth 
into a jhairum , an’ throw it away aftherwards. 
Faith, I’m not jokin’! ’Tis the bhoys — the raw 
bhoys — that don’t know fwhat a bullut manes, an’ 
wudn’t care av they did — that dhu the work. 
They’re crammed wid bullmate till they fairly ramps 
wid good livin’ ; and thin, av they don’t fight, they 
blow each other’s hids off. ’Tis the trut’ I’m tellin’ 
you. They shold be kept on dal-bhat an’ Tengri in 
the hot weather ; but there’d be a mut’ny av ’twas 
done. 

“ Did ye iver hear how Privit Mulvaney tuk the 
town av Lungtungpen ? I thought not! ’Twas the 
Lift’nint got the credit ; but ’twas me planned the 
schame. A little before I was inviladed from Burma, 
me an’ four an’ twenty young wans undher a Lift’- 
nint Brazenose, was ruinin’ our dijeshins thryin’ to 
catch dacoits. An’ such double-ended divils I niver 
knew ! ’Tis only a dah an’ a Snider that makes a 
dacoit. Widout thim, he’s a paceful cultivator, an’ 
felony for to shoot. W e hunted, an’ we hunted, an’ 
tuk fever an’ elephints now an’ again ; but no dacoits. 


THE TAKING OF LUNGTUNGPEN. 


119 


Evenshually, we puckarowed wan man. ‘ Trate him 
tinderly,’ sez the Lift’nint. So I tuk him away into 
the jungle, wid the Burmese Interprut’r an’ my clan 
in’ rod. Sez I to the man : — ‘ My peaceful squireen,’ 
sez I, ‘ you shquot on your hunkers an’ dimonstrate 
to my frind here, where your f rinds are whin they’re 
at home?’ Wid that I introjuced him to the clan- 
in’-rod, and he comminst to jabber ; the Interprut’r 
interprutin’ in betweens, an’ me helpin’ the Intilli- 
gince Departmint wid my clanin’ rod whin the man 
misremim bered. 

“ Prisintly, I learned that, acrost the river, about 
nine miles away, was a town just dhripjoin ? wid dahs, 
an’ bobs an’ arrows, an’ dacoits, an’ elephints, an’ 
jingles. ‘ Good,’ sez I. ‘ This office will now close ! ’ 

“ That night, I went to the Lift’nint an’ communi- 
cates my information. I never thought much of 
Lift’nint Brazenose till that night. He was shtiff 
wid books an’ the-ouries, an’ all manner av thrim- 
min’s no manner av use. ‘ Town did ye say ? ’ sez he. 
‘Accordin’ to the the-ouries av War, we shud wait 
for reinforcemints.’ ‘Faith!’ thinks I, ‘we’d 
betther dig our graves thin ; * for the nearest throops 
was up to their shtocks in the marshes out Mimbu 
way. ‘ But,’ says the Lift’nint, ‘ since ’tis a speshil 
case, I’ll make an excepshin. We’ll visit this Lung- 
tungpen to-night.’ 

“ The bhoys was fairly woild wid deloight whin I 
tould ’em ; an’ by this an’ that, they wint through 
the jungle like buck-rabbits. About midnight we 
come to the shtrame which I had clane forgot to 


120 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

minshin to my orficer. I was on, ahead, wid four 
bhoys, an’ I thought that the Lift’nint might want 
to th e-ourize. e Shtrip, bhoys ! ’ sez I. c Shtrip to 
the buff, an’ shwim in where glory waits ! ’ * But I 
can't shwim ! ’ sez two av thim. “ To think I should 
live to hear that from a bhoy wid a board-school 
edukashin l ’ sez I. ‘ Take a lump av thimber, an’ 
me an* Conolly here will ferry ye over, ye young 
ladies ! ’ 

“We got an ould tree-trunk, an’ pushed off wid 
the kits an’ the rifles on it. The night was chokin’ 
dhark, an’ just as we was fairly embarked, I heard 
the Lift’nint behind av me callin’ out. £ There’s a 
bit av a nullah here, Sorr,’ sez I, * but I can feel 
the bottom already.’ So I cud, for I was not a 
yard from the bank. 

“ ‘ Bit av a nullah ! Bit av a eshtuary ! ’ sez the 
Lift’nint. “ Go on, ye mad Irishman! Shtrip, 
bhoys ! ’ I heard him laugh ; an’ the bhoys begun 
shtrippin’ an’ rollin’ a log into the water to put their 
kits on. So me an’ Conolly shtruck out through the 
warm wather wid our log, an’ the rest come on be- 
hind. 

“That shtrame was miles woide! Orth’ris, on 
the rear-rank log, whispers we had got into the 
Thames below Sheerness by mistake. £ Kape on 
shwimmin’, ye little blayguard,’ sez I, ’an don’t go 
pokin’ your dirty jokes at the Irriwaddy.’ ‘ Silince, 
men ! ’ sings out the Lift’nint. So we shwum on into 
the black dhark, wid our chests on the logs, trustin’ 
in the Saints an’ the luck av the British Army. 


THE TAKING OF LUNGTUNGPEN. 


121 


“ Evenshually, we hit ground — a bit av sand 

an’ a man. I put my heel on the back av him. He 
skreeched an’ ran. 

“ ‘ Now we’ve done it ! ’ sez Lift’nint Brazenose. 
£ Where the Divil is Lungtungpen ? ’ There was 
about a minute and a half to wait. The bhoys laid 
a hould av their rifles an’ some thried to put their 
belts on ; we was marchin’ wid fixed bay nits av 
coorse. Thin we knew where Lungtungpen was; 
for we had hit the river-wall av it in the dhark, an’ 
the whole town blazed wid thim messin’ jingles an’ 
Sniders like a cat’s back on a frosty night. They 
was firin’ all ways at wanst ; but over our hids 
into the shtrame. 

“ ‘ Have you got your rifles ? ’ sez Brazenose. 
‘ Got ’em ! ’ sez Orth’ris, 6 I’ve got that thief Mul- 
vaney’s for all my back-pay, an’ she’ll kick my 
heart sick wid that blunderin’ long shtock av hers.’ 
‘ Go on ! ’ yells Brazenose, whippin’ his sword out. 
‘ Go on an’ take the town ! An’ the Lord have 
mercy on our sowls ! ’ 

Thin the bhoys gave wan divastatin’ howl, an’ 
pranced into the dhark, feelin’ for the town, an’ 
blindin’ an’ stiffin’ like Cavalry Ridin’ Masters whin 
the grass pricked their bare legs. I hammered wid 
the butt at some bamboo thing that felt wake, an’ 
the rest come an’ hammered contagious, while the 
jingles was jingling, an’ feroshus yells from inside 
was shplittin’ our ears. We was too close under 
the wall for them to hurt us. 

“ Evenshually, the thing, whatever ut was, bruk ; 


122 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


an’ the six and twinty av us tumbled, wan afther 
the other, naked as we was borrun, into the town 
of Lungtungpen. There was a melly av a sumpshus 
kind for a whoile ; but whether they tuk us, all 
white an’ wet, for a new breed av divil, or a new 
kind av dacoit, I don’t know. They ran as though 
we was both, an’ we wint into thim, baynit an’ butt, 
shriekin’ wid laughin’. There was torches in the 
shtreets, an’ I saw little Orth’ris rubbin’ his showl- 
ther ivry time he loosed my long-shtock Martini ; 
an’ Brazenose walkin’ into the gang wid his sword, 
like Diarmid av the Golden Collar — barring he hadn’t 
a stitch av clothin’ on him. We diskivered ele- 
phints widdacoits under their bellies, an’, what wid 
wan thing an’ another, we was busy till mornin’ 
takin’ possession av the town of Lungtungpen. 

“ Thin we halted an’ formed up, the wimmen 
howlin’ in the houses an’ Lift’nint Brazenose blushin’ 
pink in the light av the mornin’ sun. ‘Twas the 
most ondasint p’rade I iver tuk a hand in. Foive 
and twenty privits an’ a orficer av the line in review 
ordher, an’ not as much as wud dust a fife betune 
’em all in the way of clothin’ ! Eight av us had 
their belts an’ pouches on ; but the rest had gone in 
wid a handful av cartridges an’ the skin God gave 
him. They was as nakid as Yanus. 

“ ‘ Number off from the right ! ’ sez the Lift’nint. 
‘Odd numbers fall out to dress ; even numbers pa- 
throl the town till relieved by the dressing party.’ 
Let me tell you, pathrolin’ a town wid nothing on 
is an exjrayrience. I pathroled for tin minutes, an’ 


THE TAKING OF LUNGTUNGPEN. 123 

begad, before ’twas over, I blushed. The women 
laughed so. I niver blushed before or since ; but I 
blnshed all over my carkiss thin. Orth’ris didn’t 
pathrol. He sez only 44 Porthsmith Barricks an’ 
the ’Ard av a Sunday ! ’ Thin he lay down an’ 
rowled anyways wid laughin’. 

44 When we was all dhressed, we counted the dead 
* — sivinty-f oive dacoits besides wounded. W e tuk five 
elephints, a hunder’ an’ sivinty Sniders, two hunder’ 
dahs, and a lot av other burglarious thruck. Hot a 
man av us was hurt — excep’ may be the Lift’nint, an’ 
he from the shock to his dasincy. 

44 The Headman av Luntungpen, who surrinder’d 
himself, asked the Interprut’r : — 4 Av the English 
fight like that wid their clo’es off, what in the wur- 
ruld do they do wid their clo’es on ? ’ Orth’ris began 
rowlin’ his eyes an’ crackin’ his fingers an’ dancin’ 
a step-dance for to impress the Headman. He ran 
to his house ; an’ we spint the rest av the day car- 
ryin’ the Lift’nint on our showlthers round the town, 
an’ playin’ wid the Burmese babies — fat, little, brown 
little divils, as pretty as pictures. 

44 Whin I was inviladed for the dysent’ry to India, 
I sez to the Lift’nint : — 4 Sorr,’ sez I, 4 you’ve the 
makin’s in you av a great man ; but, av you’ll let an 
ould sodger spake, you’re too fond of th e-ourizin\ 
He shuk hands wid me and sez : — Hit high, hit 
low, there’s no plasin’ you, Mulvaney. You’ve seen 
me waltzin’ through Lungtungpen like a Red Injin 
widout the war-paint, an’ you say I’m too fond av 
t\iQ-ourizin’ f ’ 4 Sorr,’ sez I, for I loved the bhoy ; 


124 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


I wud waltz wid you in that condishin through Hell, f 
an* so wud the rest av the men ! ’ Thin I wint down, 
shtrame in the flat an’ left him my blessin’. May 
the Saints carry ut where ut shud go, for he was a 
fine upstandin’ young orficer. 

“ To reshume ! Fwhat I’ve said jist shows the 
use av three-year-olds. Wud fifty seasoned sodgers 
have taken Lungtungpen in the dhark that way ? 
No ! They’d know the risk av fever an chill. Let 
alone the shootin’. Two hundhcr’ might have done 
ut. But the three-year-olds know little an’ careless ; 
an’ where there’s no fear, there’s no danger. Catch 
them young, feed them high, an’ by the honor av 
that great little man Bobs, behind a good orficer 
’tisn’t only dacoits they’d smash wid their clo’es off 
— ’tis Con-ti-nental Ar-r-r-mies ! They tuk Lung- 
tungpen nakid ; an’ they’d take St. Pethersburg in 
their dhrawers ! Begad, they would that ! 

“ Here’s your pipe, Sorr ! Shmoke her tinderly 
wid honey-dew, afther letting the reek av the Can- 
teen plug die away. But ’tis no good, thanks to you 
all the same, fillin’ my pouch wid your chopped 
bhoosa. Canteen baccy’s like the army. It sphoils 
a man’s taste for moilder things.” 

So saying, Mulvane}^ took up his butterfly-net 
and returned to barracks. 


A GERM DESTROYER. 


126 


A GEEM DESTEOYER. 

Pleasant it is for the Little Tin Gods. 

When great Jove nods ; 

But Little Tin Gods make their little mistakes 

In missing the hour when great Jove wakes. 

As a general rule, it is inexpedient to meddle with 
questions of State in a land where men are highly 
paid to work them out for you. This tale is a jus- 
tifiable exception. 

Once in every five years, as you know, we indent 
for a new Viceroy ; and each Viceroy imports, with 
the rest of his baggage, a Private Secretary, who 
may or may not be the real Viceroy, just as Fate or- 
dains. Fate looks after the Indian Empire because 
it is so big and so helpless. 

There was a Viceroy once, who brought out with 
him a turbulent Private Secretary — a hard man with 
a soft manner and a morbid passion for work. 
This Secretary was called Wonder — John Fennii 
W onder. The Viceroy possessed no name — nothing 
but a string of counties and two- thirds of the alpha - 
beFafter them. He said, in confidence, that he was 
the electro-plated figure-head of a golden adminis- 
tration, and he watched in a dreamy, amused way 
Wonder’s attempts to draw matters which were 
entirely outside his province into his own bands. 


126 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

“ When we are all cherubims together,” said His Ex- 
cellency once, “ ray dear, good friend W onder will 
head the conspiracy for plucking out Gabriel’s tail- 
feathers or stealing Peter’s keys. Then I shall report 
him.” 

But, though the Yiceroy did nothing to check 
Wonder’s officiousness, other people said unpleasant 
things. May be the Members of Council began it ; 
but, finally, all Simla agreed that there was “ too 
much Wonder, and too little Yiceroy” in that re- 
gime. W onder was always quoting “ His Excel- 
lency.” It was “ His Excellency this,” “ His Excel- 
lency that,” “ In the opinion of his Excellency,” and 
so on. The Yiceroy smiled ; but he did not heed. 
He said that, so long as his old men squabbled with 
his “dear, good Wonder,” they might be induced to 
leave the “ Immemorial East ” in peace. 

“No wise man has a policy,” said the Yiceroy. 
“ A Policy is the blackmail levied on the Fool by the 
Unforeseen. I am not the former, and I do not be- 
lieve in the latter.” 

I do not quite see what this means, unless it refers 
to an Insurance Policy. Perhaps it was the Yice- 
roy’s way of saying : — Lie low.” 

That season, came up to Simla one of these crazy 
people with only a single idea. These are the men 
who make things move ; but they are not nice to 
talk to. This man’s name was Mellish, and he had 
lived for fifteen years on land of his own, in Lower 
Bengal, studying cholera. He held that cholera 
was a germ that propagated itself as it flew through 


A GERM DESTROYER. 


127 


a muggy atmosphere ; and stuck in the branches of 
trees like a woolflake. The germ could be rendered 
sterile, he said, by “ Mellish ’s Own Invincible Fumi- 
gatory” — a heavy violet-black powder — £ ‘the re- 
sult of fifteen years’ scientific investigation, Sir ! ” 

Inventors seem very much alike as a caste. They 
talk loudly, especially about “ conspiracies of mo- 
nopolists ; they beat upon the table with their fists ; 
and they secrete fragments of their inventions about 
their persons. 

Mellish said that there was a Medical “ Ring ” at 
Simla headed by the Surgeon-General, who was in 
league, apparently, with all the Hospital Assistants 
in the Empire. I forget exactly how he proved it, 
but it had something to do with “ skulking up to 
the Hills ; ” and what Mellish wanted was the in- 
dependent evidence of the Viceroy — “ Steward of 
our Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, Sir.” So 
Mellish went up to Simla, with eighty-four pounds 
of Fumigatory in his trunk, to speak to the Viceroy 
and to show him the merits of the invention. 

But it is easier to see a Viceroy than to talk to 
him, unless you chance to be as important as Mellishe 
of Madras. He was a six-thousand-rupee man, so 
great that his daughters never “ married.” They 
“ contracted alliances.” He himself was not paid. 
He “ received emoluments,” and his journeys about 
the country were “ tours of observation.” His busk 
ness was to stir up the people in Madras with a long 
uole — as you stir up tench in a pond — and the people 
had to come up out of their comfortable old ways 


128 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HELLS. 

and gasp : — “ This is Enlightenment and progresa 
Isn’t it fine ! ” Then they gave Mellish statues and 
jasmine garlands, in the hope of getting rid of him. 

Mellish came up to Simla “ to confer with tne 
Viceroy.” That was one of his perquisites. The 
Viceroy knew nothing of Mellishe except that he 
was “ one of those middle-class deities who seem 
necessary to the spiritual comfort of this Paradise 
of the Middle-classes,” and that, in all probability, 
he had u suggested, designed, founded, and endowed 
all the public institutions in Madras.” Which proves 
that His Excellency, though dreamy, had experience 
of the ways of six-thousand-rupee men. 

Mellishe’s name was E. Mellishe and Mellish’s was 
E. S. Mellish, and they were both staying at the 
same hotel, and the Fate that looks after the Indian 
Empire ordained that Wonder should blunder and 
drop the final “ e ; ” that the Chaprassi should help 
him, and that the note which ran : “ Dear Mr . 
Mellish . — Can you set aside your other engagements , 
cmd lunch with us at two to-morrow f His Excellency 
has <m hour at your disposal then” should be given 
to Mellish with the Fumigatorv He nearly wept 
with pride and delight, and at the appointed hour 
cantered to Peterhoff, a big paper-bag full of the 
Fumigatory in his coat-tail pockets. He had his 
chance, and he meant to make the most of it* 
Mellishe of Madras had been so portentously solemn 
about his “ conference,” that Wonder, had arranged 
for a private tiffin,— no A.-D.-C.’s, no Wonder, no 
One but the Viceroy, who said plaintively that he 


A GERM DESTROYER. 129 

feared being left alone with unmuzzled autocrat* 
like the great Mellishe of Madras. 

But his guest did not bore the Viceroy. On the 
contrary, he amused him. Mellish was nervously 
anxious to go straight to his Fumigatory, and talked 
at random until tiffin was over and His Excellency 
asked him to smoke. The Viceroy was pleased with 
Mellish because he did not talk “ shop.” 

As soon as the cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke 
like a man ; beginning with his cholera-theory, re- 
viewing his fifteen years’ “ scientific labors,” the 
machinations of the “ Simla Ring,” and the excel- 
lence of his Fumigatory, while the Viceroy watched 
him between half-shut eyes and thought : “ Evi- 
dently, this is the wrong tiger ; but it is an original 
animal.” Mellish’s hair was standing on end with 
excitement, and he stammered. He began groping 
in his coat-tails and, before the Viceroy knew what 
was about to happen, he had tipped a bagful of his 
powder into the big silver ash-tray. 

“ J-j-judge for yourself, Sir,” said Mellish. “ Y’ 
Excellency shall judge for yourself! Absolutely 
infallible, on my honor.” 

He plunged the lighted end of his cigar into the 
powder, which began to smoke like a volcano, and 
send up fat, greasy wreaths of copper-colored smoke. 
In five seconds the room was filled with a most pun- 
gent and sickening stench — a reek that took fierce 
hold of the trap of your windpipe and shut it. The 
powder then hissed and fizzed, and sent out blue and 
green sparka* and the smoke rose till you could 
9 


130 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


neither see, nor breathe, nor gasp. Mellish, how< 
ever, was used to it. 

“ Nitrate of strontia,” he shouted ; “ baryta, bone- 
meal, et cetera ! Thousand cubic feet smoke per 
cubic inch. Not a germ could live — not a germ, Y* 
Excellency ! ” 

But His Excellency had fled, and was coughing 
at the foot of the stairs, while all Peterhoff hummed 
like a hive. Red Lancers came in, and the Head Cha- 
prassi who speaks English, came in, and mace-bearers 
came in, and ladies ran down-stairs screaming, 
“ fire ; ” for the smoke was drifting through the house 
and oozing out of the windows, and bellying along the 
verandas, and wreathing and writhing across the 
gardens. No one could enter the room where Mel- 
lish was lecturing on his Fumigatory, till that un- 
speakable powder had burned itself out. 

Then an Aide-de-Camp, who desired the Y. C., 
rushed through the rolling clouds and hauled Mel- 
lish into the hall. The Yiceroy was prostrate with 
laughter, and could only waggle his hands feebly at 
Mellish, who was shaking a fresh bagful of powder 
at him. 

“ Glorious ! Glorious ! ” sobbed His Excellency. 
“ Not a germ, as you justly observe, could exist ! I 
can swear it. A magnificent success ! ” 

Then he laughed till the tears came, and Won- 
der, who had caught the real Mellishe snorting on 
the Mall, entered and was deeply shocked at the 
scene. But the Yiceroy was delighted, because he 
saw that Wonder would presently depart. Mellish 


A GERM DESTROYER. 


181 


with the Fumigatory was also pleased, for he felt 
that he had smashed the Simla Medical “ King.” 

Few men could tell a story like His Excellency 
when he took the trouble, and the account of a my 
dear, good Wonder’s friend with the powder ” went 
the round of Simla, and flippant folk made Wonder 
unhappy by their remarks. 

But His Excellency told the tale once too often — 
for Wonder. As he meant to do. It was at a 
Seepee Picnic. Wonder was sitting just behind the 
Viceroy. 

“ And I really thought for a moment,” wound up 
His Excellency, “that my dear good Wonder had 
hired an assassin to clear his way to the throne 1 ” 

Every one laughed ; but there was a delicate sub- 
tinkle in the Viceroy’s tone which Wonder under- 
stood. He found that his health was giving way ; 
and the Viceroy allowed him to go, and presented 
him with a flaming “ character ” for use at Home 
among big people. 

“ My fault entirely,” said His Excellency, in after 
seasons, with a twinkling in his eye. “ My incon- 
sistency must always have been distasteful to such 
a masterly man.” 


132 


PLAIN TALES FKOM THE HILLS. 


KIDNAPPED 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken any way you please, is bad, 

And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks 
No decent soul would think of visiting. 

You cannot stop the tide ; but now and then, 

You may arrest some rash adventurer 

Who — h’m — will hardly thank you for your pains. 

Vibart's Moralities . 

We are a high-caste and enlightened race, and in- 
fant-marriage is very shocking and the consequences 
are sometimes peculiar ; but, nevertheless, the Hindu 
notion — which is the Continental notion, which is 
the aboriginal notion — of arranging marriages irre- 
spective of the personal inclinations of the married, 
is sound. Think for a minute, and you will see that 
it must be so ; unless, of course, you believe in 
44 affinities.” In wffiich case you had better not read 
this tale. How can a man who has never married ; 
who cannot be trusted to pick up at sight a moder- 
ately sound horse ; whose head is hot and upset with 
visions of domestic felicity, go about the choosing 
of a wife ? He cannot see straight or think straight 
if he tries ; and the same disadvantages exist in the 
case of a girl’s fancies. But when mature, married 
and discreet people arrange a match between a boy 
and a girl, they do it sensibly, with a view to the 


KIDNAPPED. 


133 


future, and the young couple live happily ever after- 
wards. As everybody knows. 

Properly speaking, Government should establish 
a Matrimonial Department, efficiently officered, 
with a Jury of Matrons, a Judge of the Chief Court, 
a Senior Chaplain, and an Awful Warning, in the 
shape of a love-match that has gone wrong, chained 
to the trees in the courtyard. All marriages should 
be made through the Department, which might be 
subordinate to the Educational Department, under 
the same penalty as that attaching to the transfer of 
land without a stamped document. But Government 
won’t take suggestions. It pretends that it is too 
busy. However, I will put my notion on record, 
and explain the example that illustrates the theory. 

Once upon a time there was a good young man — 
a first-class officer in his own Department — a man 
with a career before him and, possibly, a K. C. I. E. 
at the end of it. All his superiors spoke well of 
him, because he knew how to hold his tongue and 
his pen at the proper times. There are to-day only 
eleven men in India who possess this secret ; and 
they have all, with one exception, attained great 
honor and enormous incomes. 

This good young man was quiet and self-contained 
—too old for his years by far. Which always carries 
its own punishment. Had a Subaltern, or a Tea- 
Planter’s Assistant, or anybody who enjoys life and 
has no care for to-morrow, done what he tried to do 
not a soul would have cared. But when Peythroppe 
—the estimable, virtuous, economical, quiet, hard- 


134 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


working, young Peythroppe — fell, there was a 
flutter through five Departments. 

The manner of his fall was in this way. He met 
a Miss Castries — d’Castries it was originally, but the 
family dropped the d’ for administrative reasons — 
and he fell in love with her even more energetically 
than he worked. Understand clearly that there was 
not a breath of a word to be said against Miss 
Castries — not a shadow of a breath. She was good 
and very lovely — possessed what innocent people at 
home call a “ Spanish ” complexion, with thick blue- 
black hair growing low down on the forehead, into 
a “ widow’s peak,” and big violet eyes under eye- 
brows as black and as straight as the borders of a 
Gazette Extraordinary , when a big man dies. But 

but but . Well, she was a very sweet 

girl and very pious, but for many reasons she was 
“ impossible.” Quite so. All good Mammas know 
what “ impossible ” means. It was obviously ab- 
surd that Peythroppe should marry her. The little 
opal-tinted onyx at the base of her finger-nails said 
this as plainly as print. Further, marriage with 
Miss Castries meant marriage with several other 
Castries— Honorary Lieutenant Castries her Papa, 
Mrs. Eulalie Castries her Mamma, and all the rami- 
fications of the Castries family, on incomes ranging 
from Ps. 175 to Ps. 470 a month, and their wives 
and connections again. 

It would have been cheaper for Peythroppe to 
have assaulted a Commissioner with a dog-whip, or 
to have burned the records of a Deputy Commis* 


KIDNAPPED. 


135 


sioner’s Office, than to have contracted an alliance 
with the Castries. It would have weighted his 
after-career less — even under a Government which 
never forgets and never forgives. Everybody saw 
this but Peythroppe. He was going to marry Miss 
Castries, he was — being of age and drawing a good 
income — and woe betide the house that would not 
afterwards receive Mrs. Yirginie Saulez Peythroppe 
with the deference due to her husband’s rank. 
That was Peythroppe’s ultimatum, and any remon- 
strance drove him frantic. 

These sudden madnesses most afflict the sanest 
men. There was a case once — but I will tell you 
of that later on. Y ou cannot account for the mania, 
except under a theory directly contradicting the / 
one about the Place wherein marriages are made. 
Peythroppe was burningly anxious to put a mill- 
stone round his neck at the outset of his career ; 
and argument had not the least effect on him. He 
was going to marry Miss Castries, and the business 
was his own business. He would thank you to 
keep your advice to yourself. With a man in this 
condition, mere words only fix him in his purpose. 
Of course he cannot see that marriage out here 
does not concern the individual but the Government 
he serves. 

Do vou remember Mrs. Hauksbee — the most won- 
derful woman in India ? She saved Pluffles from 
Mrs. "Reiver, won Tarrion his appointment in the 
Foreign Office, and was defeated in open field by 
Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil. She heard of the lamentable 


136 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


condition of Peythroppe, and her brain struck out 
the plan that saved him. She had the wisdom of 
the Serpent, the logical coherence of the Man, the 
fearlessness of the Child, and the triple intuition of 
the Woman. Never — no, never — as long as a tonga 
buckets down the Solon dip, or the couples go 
a-riding at the back of Summer Hill, will there be 
such a genius as Mrs. Hauksbee. She attended the 
consultation of Three Men on Pevthroppe’s case ; 
ana she stood up with the lash of her riding whip 
between her lips and spake. 

Three weeks later, Peythroppe dined with the 
Three Men, and the Gazette of India came in. Pey- 
throppe found to his surprise that he had been 
gazetted a month’s leave. Don’t ask me how this 
was managed. I believe firmly that if Mrs. Hauks- 
bee gave the order, the whole Great Indian Admin- 
istration would stand on its head. The Three Men 
had also a month’s leave each. Peythroppe put the 
Gazette down and said bad words. Then there 
came from the compound the soft “ pad-pad” of 
camels— “ thieves’ camels,” the Bikaneer breed that 
don’t bubble and howl when they sit down and 
get up. 

After that I don’t know what happened. This 
much is certain. Peythroppe disappeared — van- 
ished like smoke — and the long foot-rest chair in 
the house of the Three Men was broken to splinters. 
Also a bedstead departed from one of the bed- 
rooms. 


KIDNAPPED. 


137 


Mrs. Hauksbee said that Mr- Peythroppe was 
shooting in Rajputana with the Three Men ; so we 
were compelled to believe her. 

At the end of the month, Peythroppe was gazetted 
twenty days’ extension of leave ; but there was 
wrath and lamentation in the house of Castries. 
The marriage-day had been fixed, but the bride- 
groom never came : and the D’ Silvas, Pereiras and 
Ducketts lifted their voices and mocked Honorary 
Lieutenant Castries as one who had been basely im- 
posed upon. Mrs. Hauksbee went to the wedding, 
and was much astonished when Peythroppe did not 
appear. After seven weeks, Peythroppe and the 
Three Men returned from Rajputana. Peythroppe 
was in hard, tough condition, rather white, and 
more self-contained than ever. 

One of the Three Men had a cut on his nose, 
caused by the kick of a gun. Twelve-bores kick 
rather curiously. 

Then came Honorary Lieutenant Castries, seek- 
ing for the blood of his perfidious son-in-law to be. 
He said things — vulgar and “ impossible” things, 
which showed the raw rough “ ranker ” below the 
“ Honorary,” and I fancy Peythroppe’s eyes were 
opened. Anyhow, he held his peace till the end ; 
when he spoke briefly. Honorary Lieutenant Cas- 
tries asked for a “ peg” before he went away to die 
or bring a suit for breach of promise. 

Miss Castries was a very good girl. She said 
that she would have no breach of promise suits. 
She said that, if she was not a lady, she was refined 


138 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


enough to know that ladies kept their broken hearts 
to themselves ; and, as she ruled her parents, noth- 
ing happened. Later on, she married a most re- 
spectable and gentlemanly person. He traveled for 
an enterprising firm in Calcutta, and was all that a 
good husband should be. 

So Peythroppe came to his right mind again, and 
did much good work, and was honored by all who 
knew him. One of these days he will marry ; but 
he will marry a sweet pink-and-white maiden, on 
the Government House List, with a little money 
and some influential connections, as every wise man 
should. And he will never, all his life, tell her 
what happened during the seven weeks of his shoot- 
ing-tour in Rajputana. 

But just think how much trouble and expense — for 
camel hire is not cheap, and those Bikaneer brutes 
had to be fed like humans — might have been saved 
by a properly conducted Matrimonial Department, 
under the control of the Director-General of Educa- 
tion, but corresponding direct with the Viceroy. 


THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY. 139 


THE ARREST OF LIEUTEHAHT 
GOLIGHTLY. 

ss < p ve forgotten the countersign,* sez *e. 

‘ Oh ! You ’ave, ’ave you?* sez I. 

‘ But I’m the Colonel,’ sez ’e. 

* Oh ! You are, are you ? ’ sez I. ‘ Colonel nor no Colonel, 
you waits ’ere till I’m relieved, an’ the Sarjint reports on your 
ugly old mug. Coop ! ’ sez I. 

• ••••••• 


An’ s’elp me soul, ’twas the Colonel after all ! But I was a 
recruity then.” 

The Unedited Autobiography of Private Ortheris. 

If there was one thing on which Golightly prided 
himself more than another, it was looking like “ an 
Officer and a Gentleman.” He said it was for the 
honor of the Service that he attired himself so 
elaborately ; but those who knew him best said 
that it was just personal vanity. There was no 
harm about Golightly — not an ounce. He recog- 
nized a horse when he saw one, and could do more 
than fill a cantle. He played a very fair game at 
billiards, and was a sound man at the whist-table. 
Every one liked him ; and nobody ever dreamed of 
seeing him handcuffed on a station platform as a 
deserter. But this sad thing happened. 

He was going down from Dalhousie, at the end 


140 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

of his leave— riding down. He had cut his leave 
as fine as he dared, and wanted to come down in a 
hurry. 

It was fairly warm at Dalhousie, and knowing 
what to expect below, he descended in a new khalci 
suit — tight fitting — of a delicate olive-green ; a pea- 
cock-blue tie, white collar, and a snowy white solah 
helmet. He prided himself on looking neat even 
when he was riding post. He did look neat, and 
he was so deeply concerned about his appearance 
before he started that he quite forgot to take any- 
thing but some small change with him. He left all 
his notes at the hotel. His servants had gone 
down the road before him, to be ready in waiting 
at Pathankote with a change of gear. That was 
what he called traveling in “ light marching-order.” 
He was proud of his faculty of organization — what 
we call bundobust. 

Twenty-two miles out of Dalhousie it began to 
rain — not a mere hill-shower but a good, tepid mon- 
soonish downpour. Golightly bustled on, wishing 
that he had brought an umbrella. The dust on the 
roads turned into mud, and the pony mired a good 
deal. So did Golightly’s khaki gaiters. But he 
kept on steadily and tried to think how pleasant 
the coolth was. 

His next pony was rather a brute at starting, and 
Golightly’s hands being slippery with the rain, con- 
trived to get rid of Golightly at a corner. He 
chased the animal, caught it, and went ahead 
briskly. The spill had not improved his clothes or 


THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOT IGHTLY. 141 

his temper, and he had lost one spur. He kept the 
other one employed. By the time that stage was 
ended, the pony had had as much exercise as he 
wanted, and, in spite of the rain, Golightly was 
sweating freely. At the end of another miserable 
half-hour, Golightly found the world disappear be- 
fore his eyes in clammy pulp. The rain had turned 
the pith of his huge and snowy solah-topee into an 
evil-smelling dough, and it had closed on his head 
like a half-opened mushroom. Also the green lining 
was beginning to run. 

Golightly did not say anything worth recording 
here. He tore off and squeezed up as much of the 
brim as was in his eyes and plowed on. The back 
of the helmet was flapping on his neck and the sides 
stuck to his ears, but the leather band and green 
lining kept things roughly together, so that the hat 
did not actually melt away where it flapped. 

Presently, the pulp and the green stuff made a 
sort of slimy mildew which ran over Golightly in 
several directions — down his back and bosom for 
choice. The Jchaki color ran too — it was really 
shockingly bad dye— and sections of Golightly were 
brown, and patches were violet, and contours were 
ochre and streaks were ruddy red, and blotches 
were nearly white according to the nature and 
peculiarities of the dye. "When he took out his 
handkerchief to wipe his face and the green of the hat 
lining and the purple stuff that had soaked through 
on to his neck from the tie became thoroughly mixed, 
the effect was amazing. 


142 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Near Dhar the rain stopped and the evening sun 
came out and dried him up slightly. It fixed the 
colors, too. Three miles from Pathankote the last 
pon}^ fell dead lame, and Golightly was forced to 
walk. He pushed on into Pathankote to find his 
servants. He did not know then that his khitmatgar 
had stopped by the roadside to get drunk, and 
would come on the next day saying that he had 
sprained his ankle. When he got into Pathankote, 
he couldn’t find his servants, his boots were stiff and 
ropy with mud, and there were large quantities of 
dirt about his body. The blue tie had run as much 
as the khaki. So he took it off with the collar and 
threw it away. Then he said something about serv- 
ants generally and tried to get a peg. He paid 
eight annas for the drink, and this revealed to him 
that he had only six annas more in his pocket — or 
in the world as he stood at that hour. 

He went to the Station-Master to negotiate for a 
first-class ticket to Khasa, where he was stationed. 
The booking-clerk said something to the Station- 
Master, the Station-Master said something to the Tele- 
graph Clerk, and the three looked at him with curios- 
ity. They asked him to wait for half an hour, while 
they telegraphed to TTmritsar for authority. So he 
waited and four constables came and grouped them- 
selves picturesquely round him. Just as he wi & pre- 
paring to ask them to go away, the Station-Master 
said that he would give the Sahib a ticket to Umiitsar, 
if the Sahib would kindly come inside the booking- 
office. Golightly stepped inside, and the next thing 


THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY. 143 

he knew was that a constable was attached to each 
of his legs and arms, while the Station-Master was 
trying to cram a mail-bag over his head. 

There was a very fair scuffle all round the book- 
ing-office, and Golightly received a nasty cut over 
his eye through falling against a table. But the 
constables were too much for him, and they and the 
Station-Master handcuffed him securely. As soon 
as the mail-bag was slipped, he began expressing 
his opinions, and the head-constable said : — “ With- 
out doubt this is the soldier-Englishman we required. 
Listen to the abuse ! ” Then Golightly asked the 
Station-Master what the this and the that the proceed- 
ings meant. The Station-Master told him he was 

“ Private John Binkleof the Regiment, 5 ft. 9 

in., fair hair, gray eyes, and a dissipated appearance, 
no marks on the body,” who had deserted a fortnight 
ago. Golightly began explaining at great length : 
and the more he explained the less the Station- 
Master believed him. He said that no Lieutenant 
could look such a ruffian as did Golightly, and that 
his instructions were to send his capture under prop- 
er escort to IJmritsar. Golightly was feeling very 
damp and uncomfortable, and the language he used 
was not fit for publication, even in an expurgated 
form . The four constables saw him safe to IJmritsar 
in an “ intermediate ” compartment, and he spent 
the four-hour journey in abusing them as fluently 
as his knowledge of the vernaculars allowed. 

At Umritsar he was bundled out on the platform 
into the arms of a Corporal and two men of the 


144 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Regiment. Golightly drew himself up and tried to 
carry off matters jauntily. He did not feel too 
jaunty in handcuffs, with four constables behind 
him, and the blood from the cut on his forehead 
stiffening on his left cheek. The Corporal was not 
jocular either. Golightly got as far as : — 44 This is 
a very absurd mistake, my men,” when the Corporal 
told him to 44 stow his lip ” and come along. Go- 
lightly did not want to come along. He desired to 
stop and explain. He explained very well indeed, 
until the Corporal cut in with : — “ You a orficer ! 
It’s the like o’ you as brings disgrace on the likes 
of us. Bloomin’ fine orficer you are ! I know your 
regiment. The Rogue’s March is the quickstep 
where you come from. You’re a black shame to 
the Service.” 

Golightly kept his temper, and began explaining 
all over again from the beginning. Then he was 
marched out of the rain into the refreshment-room 
and told not to make a qualified fool of himself. 
The men were going to run him up to Fort Go- 
vindghar. And 44 running up ” is a performance 
almost as undignified as the Frog March. 

Golightly was nearly hysterical with rage and 
the chill and the mistake and the handcuffs and the 
headache that the cut on his forehead had given 
him. He really laid himself out to express what 
was in his mind. When he had quite finished and 
his throat was feeling dry, one of the men said : — 
“ I’ve ’eard a few beggars in the click blind, stiff 
and crack on a bit ; but I’ve never ’eard any one to 


THE ARREST OF LIEUTENANT GOLIGHTLY. 145 

touch this ere 6 orflcer.’ ” They were not angry 
with him. They rather admired him. They had 
some beer at the refreshment-room, and offered Go- 
lightly some too, because he had “ swore won’erful.” 
They asked him to tell them all about the adven* 
tures of Private John Binlde while he was loose on 
the country-side ; and that made Golightly wilder 
than ever. If he had kept his wits about him he 
would have kept quiet until an officer came ; but he 
attempted to run. 

Now the butt of a Martini in the small of your 
back hurts a great deal, and rotten, rain-soaked 
khaki tears easily when two men are jerking at your 
collar. 

Golightly rose from the floor feeling very sick 
and giddy, with his shirt ripped open all down his 
breast and nearly all down his back. He yielded 
to his luck, and at that point the down-train from 
Lahore came in carrying one of Golightly’s Majors. 

This is the Major’s evidence in full : — 

“ There was the sound of a scuffle in the second- 
class refreshment-room, so I went in and saw tne 
most villainous loafer that I ever set eyes on. His 
boots and breeches were plastered with mud and 
beer-stains. He wore a muddy-white dunghill sort 
of thing on his head, and it hung down in slips on 
his shoulders which were a good deal scratched. 
He was half in and half out of a shirt as nearly in 
two pieces as it could be, and he was begging the 
guard to look at the name on the tail of it. As he 
had rucked the shirt all over his head, I couldn’t at 
to 


146 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


first see who he was, but I fancied that he was a man 
in the first stage of D. T. from the way he swore 
while he wrestled with his rags. When he turned 
round, and I had made allowance for a lump as big 
as a pork-pie over one eye, and some green war- 
paint on the face, and some violet stripes round the 
neck, I saw that it was Golightly. He was very 
glad to see me,” said the Major, “ and he hoped I 
would not tell the Mess about it. 1 didn’t, but you 
can, if you like, now that Golightly has gone 
Home.” 

Golightly spent the greater part of that summer 
in trying to get the Corporal and the two soldiers 
tried by Court-Martial for arresting an u officer and 
a gentleman.” They were, of course, very sorry 
for their error. But the tale leaked into the regi- 
mental canteen, and thence ran about the Province 


IN THE HOUSE OP SUDDHOO. 


147 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 

A stone’s throw out on either hand 
From that well-ordered road we tread, 

And all the world is wild and strange ; 

Churel and ghoul and Djinn and sprite 
Shall bear us company to-night, 

For we have reached the Oldest Land 
Wherein the Powers of Darkness range. 

From the Dusk to the Dawn . 

The house of Suddhoo, near the Taksali Gate is 
two-storied, with four carved windows of old browu 
wood, and a flat roof. You may recognize it by 
five red hand-prints arranged like the Five of Dia- 
monds on the whitewash between the upper win- 
dows. Bhagwan Dass, the bunnia, and a man who 
says he gets his living by seal -cutting, live in the 
lower story with a troop of wives, servants, friends, 
and retainers. The two upper rooms used to be oc- 
cupied by Janoo and Azizun and a little black-and- 
tan terrier that was stolen from an Englishman’s 
house and given to Janoo by a soldier. To-day, 
only Janoo lives in the upper rooms. Suddhoo 
sleeps on the roof generally, except when he sleeps 
in the street. He used to go to Peshawar in the cold 
weather to visit his son, who sells curiosities near 
the Edwardes’ Gate, and then he slept under a real 
mud roof. Suddhoo is a great friend of mine, be- 


148 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


cause his cousin had a son who secured, thanks to 
my recommendation, the post of head-messenger to 
a big firm in the Station. Suddhoo says that God 
will make me a Lieutenant-Governor one of these 
days. I daresay his prophecy will come true. He 
is very, very old, with white hair and no teeth 
worth showing, and he has outlived his wits — out- 
lived nearly everything except his fondness for his 
son at Peshawar. Janoo and Azizun are Kashmiris, 
Ladies of the City, and theirs was an ancient and 
more or less honorable profession ; but Azizun has 
since married a medical student from the North- 
West and has settled down to a most respectable 
life somewhere near Bareilly. Bhagwan Dass is an 
extortionate and an adulterator. He is very rich. 
The man who is supposed to get his living by seal- 
cutting pretends to be very poor. This lets yon 
know as much as is necessary of the four principal 
tenants in the house of Suddhoo. Then there is Me, 
of course ; but I am only the chorus that comes in 
at the end to explain things. So I do not count. 

Suddhoo was not clever. The man who pretended 
to cut seals was the cleverest of them all — Bhag- 
wan Dass only knew how to lie — except Janoo. 
She was also beautiful, but that was her own affair. 

Suddhoo’s son at Peshawar was attacked by pleu- 
risy, and old Suddhoo was troubled. The seal-cutter 
man heard of Suddhoo’s anxiety and made capital 
out of it. He was abreast of the times. He got a 
friend in Peshawar to telegraph daily accounts of the 
son’s health. And here the story begins. 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 


14:9 


Suddhoo’s cousin’s son told me, one evening, that 
Suddhoo wanted to see me ; that he was too old and 
feeble to come personally, and that I should be 
conferring an everlasting honor on the House of 
Suddhoo if I went to him. 1 went ; but I think, 
seeing how well-off Suddhoo was then, that he 
might have sent something better than an ekka , 
which jolted fearfully, to haul out a future Lieu- 
tenant-Governor to the City on a muggy April 
evening. The ekka did not run quickly. It was 
full dark when we pulled up opposite the door of 
Ranjit Singh’s Tomb near the main gate of the Fort. 
Here was Suddhoo and he said that, by reason of 
my condescension, it was absolutely certain that I 
should become a Lieutenant-Governor while my hair 
was yet black. Then we talked about the weather 
and the state of my health, and the wheat crops, for 
fifteen minutes, in the ILuzuri Bagh, under the stars. 

Suddhoo came to the point at last. He said that 
Janoo had told him that there was an order of the 
Sirkar against magic, because it was feared that 
magic might one day kill the Empress of India. I 
didn’t know anything about the state of the law ; 
but I fancied that something interesting was going 
to happen. I said that so far from magic being 
discouraged by the Government it was highly com- 
mended. The greatest officials of the State prac- 
tised it themselves. (If the Financial Statement isn’t 
magic, I don’t know what is.) Then, to encourage 
him further, I said that, if there was any jadoo 
afoot, I had not the least objection to giving it my 


150 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


countenance and sanction, and to seeing that it was 
clean jadoo — white magic, as distinguished from the 
unclean jadoo which kills folk. It took a long time 
before Suddhoo admitted that this was just what 
he had asked me to come for. Then he told me, in 
jerks and quavers, that the man who said he cut 
seals was a sorcerer of the cleanest kind ; that every 
day he gave Suddhoo news of the sick son in Peshawar 
more quickly than the lightning could fly, and that 
this news was always corroborated by the letters. 
Further, that he had told Suddhoo how a great 
danger was threatening his son, which could be 
removed by clean jadoo ; and, of course, heavy pay- 
ment. I began to see exactly how the land lay, 
and told Suddhoo that / also understood a little 
jadoo in the Western line, and would go to his house 
to see that everything was done decently and in 
order. We set off together ; and on the way Sud- 
dhoo told me that he had paid the seal-cutter between 
one hundred and two hundred rupees already ; and 
the jadoo of that night would cost two hundred 
more. Which was cheap, he said, considering the 
greatness of his son’s danger ; but I do not think 
he meant it. 

The lights were all cloaked in the front of the house 
when we arrived. I could hear awful noises from 
behind the seal-cutter’s shop-front, as if some one 
were groaning his soul out. Suddhoo shook all over, 
and while we groped our way up-stairs told me that 
the jadoo had begun. Janoo and Azizum met us at 
the stair-head, and told us that the jadoo- work was 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 15 ! 

coming off in their rooms, because there was more 
space there. Janoo is a lady of a free-tb inking turn 
of mind. She whispered that the jadoo was an inven- 
tion to get money out of Suddhoo, and that the seal- 
cutter would go to a hot place when he died. Sud- 
dhoo was nearly crying with fear and old age. He 
kept walking up and down the room in the half light, 
repeating his son’s name over and over again, and 
asking Azizun if the seal-cutter ought not to make a 
reduction in the case of his own landlord. Janoo 
pulled me over to the shadow in the recess of the 
carved bow- windows. The boards were up, and the 
rooms were only lit by one tiny oil-lamp. There was 
no chance of my being seen if I stayed still. 

Presently, the groans below ceased, and we heard 
steps on the staircase. That was the seal-cutter. 
He stopped outside the door as the terrier barked and 
Azizun fumbled at the chain, and he told Suddhoo to 
blow out the lamp. This left the place in jet dark- 
ness, except for the red glow from the two huqas 
that belonged to Janoo and Azizun. The seal-cutter 
came in, and I heard Suddhoo throw himself down on 
the floor and groan. Azizun caught her breath, and 
Janoo backed on to one of the beds with a shudder. 
There was a clink of something metallic, and then 
shot up a pale blue-green flame near the ground. 
The light was just enough to show Azizun, pressed 
against one corner of the room with the terrier be- 
tween her knees ; Janoo, with her hands clasped, 
leaning forward as she sat on the bed ; Suddhoo. 
face down, quivering, and the seal-cutter. 


152 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


I hope I may never see another man like that seal- 
cutter. He was stripped to the waist, with a wreath 
of white jasmine as thick as my wrist round his fore- 
head, a salmon-colored loin-cloth round his middle, 
and a steel bangle on each ankle. This was not awe- 
inspiring. It was the face of the man that turned 
me cold. It was blue-gray in the first place. In the 
second, the eyes were rolled back till you could only 
see the whites of them ; and, in the third, the face was 
the face of a demon — a ghoul — anything you please 
except of the sleek, oily old ruffian who sat in the day- 
time over his turning-lathe down-stairs. He was 
lying on his stomach with his arms turned and crossed 
behind him, as if he had been thrown down pinioned. 
His head and neck were the only parts of him off the 
floor. They were nearly at right angles to the body, 
like the head of a cobra at spring. It was ghastly. 
In the center of the room, on the bare earth floor, 
stood a big, deep, brass basin, with a pale blue-green 
light floating in the center like a night-light. Round 
that basin the man on the floor wriggled himself three 
times. How he did it I do not know. I could see 
the muscles ripple along his spine and fall smooth 
again ; but I could not see any other motion. The 
head seemed the only thing alive about him, except 
that slow curl and uncurl of the laboring back- 
muscles. J anoo from the bed was breathing seventy 
to the minute : Azizun held her hands before her 
eyes ; and old Suddhoo, fingering at the dirt that had 
got into his white beard, was crying to himself. The 
horror of it was that the creeping, crawly thing made 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 153 

no sound — only crawled ! And remember, this lasted 
for ten minutes, while the terrier whined, and Azi- 
zun shuddered, and Janoo gasped and Suddhoo 
cried. 

I felt the hair lift at the back of my head, and my 
heart thump like a thermantidote paddle. Luckily, 
the seal-cutter betrayed himself by his most impres- 
sive trick and made me calm again. After he had 
finished that unspeakable triple crawl, he stretched 
his head away from the floor as high as he could, 
and sent out a jet of fire from his nostrils. Now I 
knew how fire-spouting is done — I can do it myself 
- — so I felt at ease. The business was a fraud. If 
he had only kept to that crawl without trying to 
raise the effect, goodness knows what I might not have 
thought. Both the girls shrieked at the jet of fire 
and the head dropped, chin-down, on the floor with 
a thud ; the whole body lying then like a corpse 
with its arms trussed. There was a pause of five 
full minutes after this, and the blue-green flame 
died down. Janoo stooped to settle one of her ank- 
lets, while Azizun turned her face to the wall and 
took the terrier in her arms. Suddhoo put out an 
arm mechanically to Janoo’s huqa , and she slid it 
across the floor with her foot. Directly above the 
body and on the wall, were a couple of flaming por- 
traits, in stamped paper frames, of the Queen and 
the Prince of Wales. They looked down on the 
performance, and, to my thinking, seemed to 
heighten the grotesqueness of it all. 

Just when the silence was getting unendurable, 


154 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

the body turned over and rolled away from the 
basin to the side of the room, where it lay stomach- 
op. There was a faint “ plop ” from the basin — ex- 
actly like the noise a fish makes when it takes a fly 
— and the green light in the center revived. 

I looked at the basin, and saw, bobbing in the 
water, the dried, shriveled, black head of a native 
baby — open eyes, open mouth and shaved scalp. It 
was worse, being so very sudden, than the crawling 
exhibition. We had no time to say anything before 
it began to speak. 

Kead Poe’s account of the voice that came from 
the mesmerized dying man, and you will realize less 
than one-half of the horror of that head’s voice. 

There was an interval of a second or two between 
each word, and a sort of “ ring, ring, ring,” in the 
note of the voice, like the timbre of a bell. It pealed 
slowly, as if talking to itself, for several minutes be- 
fore I got rid of my cold sweat. Then the blessed 
solution struck me. I looked at the body lying near 
the doorway, and saw, just where the hollow of the 
throat joins on the shoulders, a muscle that had 
nothing to do with any man’s regular breathing, 
twitching away steadily. The whole thing was°a 
careful reproduction of the Egyptian teraphin that 
one reads about sometimes 5 and the voice was as 
clever and as appalling a piece of ventriloquism as 
one could wish to hear. All this time the head was 
“lip-lip-lapping” against the side of the basin, and 
speaking. It told Suddhoo, on his face again whin- 
ing, of his son’s illness and of the state of "the illness 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 155 

up to the evening of that very night. I always shall 
respect the seal-cutter for keeping so faithfully to 
the time of the Peshawar telegrams. It went on to 
say that skilled doctors were night and day watch- 
ing over the man’s life ; and that he would eventu- 
ally recover if the fee to the potent sorcerer, whose 
servant was the head in the basin, were doubled. 

Here the mistake from the artistic point of view 
came in. To ask for twice your stipulated fee in a 
voice that Lazarus might have used when he rose 
from the dead, is absurd. J anoo, who is really a 
woman of masculine intellect, saw this as quickly as 
I did. I heard her say “ AsU naMn ! Fareib ! ” 
scornfully under her breath • and just as she said so, 
the light in the basin died out, the head stopped 
talking, and we heard the room door creak on its 
hinges. Then Janoo struck a match, lit the lamp, 
and we saw that head, basin, and seal-cutter were 
gone. Suddhoo was wringing his hands and ex- 
plaining to any one who cared to listen, that, if his 
chances of eternal salvation depended on it, he could 
not raise another two hundred rupees. Azizun was 
nearly in hysterics in the corner; while Janoo sat 
down composedly on one of the beds to discuss the 
probabilities of the whole thing being a Inmao, or 
“ make-up.” 

I explained as much as I knew of the seal-cutter’s 
way of jadoo ; but her argument was much more 
simple:— “The magic that is always demanding 
gifts is no true magic,” said she. “ My mother told 
me that the only potent love-spells are those which 


156 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


are told you for love. This seal-cutter man is a liar 
and a devi 1. I dare not tell, do anything, or get any- 
thing done, because I am in debt to Bhagwan Dass 
the bunnia for two gold rings and a heavy anklet. 
I must get my food from his shop. The seal-cutter 
is the friend of Bhagwan Dass, and he would poison 
my food. A fool’s jadoo has been going on for ten 
days, and has cost Suddhoo many rupees each night. 
The seal-cutter used black hens and lemons and 
jicrbtras before. He never showed us anything like 
this till to-night. Azizun is a fool, and will be a 
pur dahnashin soon. Suddhoo has lost his strength 
and his wits. See now ! I had hoped to get from 
Suddhoo many rupees while he lived, and many 
more after his death ; and behold, he is spending 
everything on that offspring of a devil and a she- 
ass, the seal-cutter ! ” 

Here I said : — “ But what induced Suddhoo to 
drag me into the business ? Of course I can speak 
to the seal-cutter, and he shall refund. The whole 
thing is child’s talk — shame — and senseless.’’ 

“ Suddhoo is an old child,” said Janoo. “ He has 
lived on the roofs these seventy years and is as 
senseless as a milch-goat. He brought you here to 
assure himself that he was not breaking any Ir.w of 
the SirJcar , whose salt he ate many years ago. He 
worships the dust off the feet of the seal-cutter ; and 
that cow-devourer has forbidden him to go and see 
his son. What does Suddhoo know of your lawr >r 
the lightning-post \ I have to watch his money go- 
ing d::v by day to that lying beast below '* 


IN THE HOUSE OF SUDDHOO. 


157 


Janoo stamped her foot on the floor and nearly 
cried with vexation ; while Suddhoo was whimper- 
ing under a blanket in the corner, and Azizun was 
trying to guide the pipe-stem to his foolish old 
mouth. 


Now the case stands thus. Unthinkingly, 1 have 
laid myself open to the charge of aiding and abetting 
the seal-cutter in obtaining money under false pre- 
tenses, which is forbidden by Section 420 of the 
Indian Penal Code. I am helpless in the matter for 
these reasons, I cannot inform the Police. What 
witness would support my statement? Janoo re- 
fuses flatly, and Azizun is a veiled woman some- 
where near Bareilly — lost in this big India of ours. 
I care not again to take the law into my own hands, 
and speak to the seal-cutter ; for certain am I that, 
not only would Suddhoo disbelieve me, but this step 
would end in the poisoning of Janoo, who is bound 
hand and foot by her debt to the lunnia. Suddhoo 
is an old dotard ; and whenever we meet mumbles 
my idiotic joke that the 8 'irkar rather patronizes 
the Black Art than otherwise. His son is well now ; 
but Suddhoo is completely under the influence of 
the seal-cutter, by whose advice he regulates the af- 
fairs of his life. Janoo watches daily the money 
that she hoped to wheedle out of Suddhoo taken by 
the seal-cutter, and becomes daily more furious and 
sullen. 

She will never tell, because she dare not ; but 


158 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


unless something happens to prevent her, I am afraid 
that the seal-cutter will die of cholera— -the white 
arsenic kind — about the middle of May. And thus 
I shall have to be privy to a murder in the House 
of Suddhoa 


HIS WEDDED WIFE, 


i3» 


HIS WEDDED WIFE. 

Cry “ Murder ! ” in the market-place, and each 
Will turn upon his neighbor anxious eyes 
That ask : — “ Art thou the man ? ” We hunted Cain, 
Some centuries ago, across the world. 

That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain 
To-day. 

Vibarfs Moralities, 

Shakespeare says something about worms, or it 
may be giants or beetles, turning if you tread on 
them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread 
on a worm — not even on the last new subaltern 
from Home, with his buttons hardly out of their 
tissue paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his 
cheeks. This is the story of the worm that turned. 
For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry August 
tus Kamsay Faizanne, “ The Worm,” although he 
really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a 
hair on his face, and with a waist like a girl’s when 
he came out to the Second “ Shikarris ” and was 
made unhappy in several ways. The “ Shikarris ** 
are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to 
do things well — play a banjo or ride more than a 
little, or sing, or act — to get on with them. 

The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and 
knock chips out of gate-posts with his trap. Even 
that became monotonous after a time. He objected 


160 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, 
kept very much to himself, and wrote to his Mam- 
ma and sisters at Home. Four of these five things 
were vices which the “ Shikarris ” objected to and 
set themselves to eradicate. Every one knows how 
subalterns are, by brother subalterns, softened and 
not permitted to be ferocious. It is good and whole- 
some, and does no one any harm, unless tempers are 
lost ; and then there is trouble. There was a man 
once — but that is another story. 

The “ Shikarris ” shikarred The Worm very much, 
and he bore everything without winking. He was 
so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so pink, 
that his education was cut short, and he was left to 
his own devices by every one except the Senior 
Subaltern who continued to make life a burden to 
The Worm. The Senior Subaltern meant no harm ; 
but his chaff was coarse, and he didn’t quite under- 
stand where to stop. He had been waiting too long 
for his Company ; and that always sours a man. 
Also he was in love, which made him worse. 

One day, after he had borrowed The Worm’s trap 
for a lady who never existed, had used it himself all 
the afternoon, had sent a note to The Worm, pur- 
porting to come from the lady, and was telling the 
Mess all about it, The Worm rose in his place and 
said, in his quiet, ladylike voice : — “ That was a very 
pretty sell; but I’ll lay you a month’s pay to "a 
month’s pay when you get your step, that I work 
a sell on you that you’ll remember for the rest of 
your days, and the Hegiment after you when you’re 


HIS WEDDED WIFE. 


161 


dead or broke,” The Worm wasn’t angry in the least, 
and the rest of the Mess shouted. Then the Senior 
Subaltern looked at The Worm from the boots up- 
wards, and down again and said “ Done, Baby.” 
The Worm took the rest of the Mess to witness that 
the bet had been taken, and retired into a book with 
a sweet smile. 

Two months passed, and the Senior Subaltern still 
educated The Worm, who began to move about a 
little more as the hot weather came on. I have 
said that the Senior Subaltern was in love. The 
curious thing is that a girl was in love with the 
Senior Subaltern. Though the Colonel said awful 
things, and the Majors snorted, and married Cap- 
tains looked unutterable wisdom, and the juniors 
scoffed, those two were engaged. 

The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting 
his Company and his acceptance at the same time 
that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl was 
a pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does 
not come into this story at all. 

One night, at beginning of the hot weather, all 
the Mess, except The Worm, who had gone to his 
own room to write Home letters, were sitting on the 
platform outside the Mess House. The Band had 
finished playing, but no one wanted to go in. And 
the Captains’ wives were there also. The folly of a 
man in love is unlimited. The Senior Subaltern had 
been holding forth on the merits of the girl he was 
engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval 
while the men yawned, when there was a rustle of 


162 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

skirts in the dark, and a tired, faint voice lifted it- 
self : 

“ Where’s my husband ? ” 

I do not wish in the least to reflect on the moral- 
ity of the “ Shikarris ; ” but it is on record that four 
men jumped up as if they been shot. Three of them 
were married men. Perhaps they were afraid that 
their wives had come from Home unbeknownst. 
The fourth said that he had acted on the impulse of 
the moment. He explained this afterwards. 

Then the voice cried : — “ Oh, Lionel I ” Lionel was 
the Senior Subaltern’s name. A woman came into 
the little circle of light by the candles on the peg* 
tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where 
the Senior Subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to 
our feet, feeling that things were going to happen 
and ready to believe the worst. In this bad, small 
world of ours, one knows so little of the life of the 
next man — which, after all, is entirely his own 
concern — that one is not surprised when a crash 
comes. Anything might turn up any day for 
any one. Perhaps the Senior Subaltern had been 
trapped in his youth. Men are crippled that way 
occasionally. We didn’t know ; we wanted to hear ; 
and the Captains’ wives were as anxious as we. If 
he had been trapped, he was to be excused ; for the 
woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes, and gray 
traveling dress, was very lovely, with black hair 
and great eyes full of tears. She was tall, with a 
fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it 
pitiful to hear. As soon as the Senior Subaltern 


HIS WEDDED WIFE. 


163 


stood up, she threw her arms round his neck, and 
called him “ my darling,” and said she could not 
bear waiting alone in England, and his letters were 
so short and cold, and she was his to the end of the 
world, and would he forgive her? This did not 
sound quite like a lady’s way of speaking. It was 
too demonstrative. 

Things seemed black indeed, and the Captains’ 
wives peered under their eyebrows at the Senior 
Subaltern, and the Colonel’s face set like the Day of 
Judgment framed in gray bristles, and no one spoke 
for a while. 

Next the Colonel said, very shortly: — “Well, 
Sir ? ” and the woman sobbed afresh. The Senior 
Subaltern was half choked with the arms round his 
neck, but he gasped out: — “ It’s a d — d lie! I 
never had a wife in my life ! ” “ Don’t swear,” said 

the Colonel. “ Come into the Mess. We must sift 
this clear somehow,” and he sighed to himself, for 
he believed in his “ Shikarris,” did the Colonel. 

We trooped into the anteroom, under the full 
lights, and there we saw how beautiful the woman 
was. She stood up in the middle of us all* some- 
times choking with crying, then hard and proud, 
and then holding outlier arms to the Senior Subal- 
tern. It was like the fourth act of a tragedy. 
She told us how the Senior Subaltern had married 
her when he was Home on leave eighteen months 
before ; and she seemed to know all that we knew, 
and more too, of his people and his past life. He 
was white and ashy gray, trying now and again to 


164 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


break into the torrent of her words ; and we, noting 
how lovely she was and what a criminal he looked, 
esteemed him a beast of the worst kind. We felt 
sorry for him, though. 

I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior 
Subaltern by his wife. Nor will he. It was so sud- 
den, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into our 
dull lives. The Captains’ wives stood back ; but 
their eyes were alight, and you could see that they 
had already convicted and sentenced the Senior 
Subaltern. The Colonel seemed five years older. 

One Major was shading his eyes with his hand 
and watching the woman from underneath it. 
Another was chewing his mustache and smiling 
quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Full in the 
open space in the center, by the whist-tables, the 
Senior Subaltern’s terrier was hunting for fleas. I 
remember all this as clearly as though a photograph 
were in my hand. I remember the look of horror 
on the Senior Subaltern’s face. It was rather like 
seeing a man hanged ; but much more interesting. 
Finally, the woman wound up by saying that the 
Senior Subaltern carried a double F. M. in tattoo on 
his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our in- 
nocent minds it seemed to clinch the matter. But 
one of the Bachelor Majors said very politely : — “ I 
presume that your marriage certificate would be 
more to the purpose ? ” 

That roused the woman. She stood up and 
sneered at the Senior Subaltern for a cur, and 
abused the Major and the Colonel and all the rest 


HIS WEDDED WIFE. 


165 


Then she wept, and then she pulled a paper from 
her breast, saying imperially : — “ Take that ! And 
let my husband — my lawfully wedded husband — 
read it aloud — if he dare ! ” 

There was a hush, and the men looked into each 
other’s eyes as the Senior Subaltern came forward 
in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the paper. We 
Were wondering as we stared, whether there was 
anything against any one of us that might turn up 
later on. The Senior Subaltern’s throat was dry ; 
but, as he ran his eye over the paper, he broke out 
into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the woman : 
— “ You young blackguard ! ” 

But the woman had fled through a door, and on 
the paper was written : — “ This is to certify that I, 
The Worm, have paid in full my debts to the Senior 
Subaltern, and, further, that the Senior Subaltern is 
my debtor, by agreement on the 23d of February, 
as by the Mess attested, to the extent of one month’s 
Captain’s pay, in the lawful currency of the India 
Empire.” 

Then a deputation set off for The Worm’s quar- 
ters and found him, betwixt and between, unlacing 
his stays, with the hat, wig, serge dress, etc., on the 
bed. He came over as he was, and the “ Shikarris ” 
shouted till the Gunners’ Mess sent over to know if 
they might have a share of the fun. I think we 
were all, except the Colonel and the Senior Subal- 
tern, a little disappointed that the scandal had come 
to nothing. But that is human nature. There 
could be no two words about The Worm’s acting. 


166 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything 
this side of a joke can. When most of the Subal- 
terns sat upon him with sofa-cushions to find out 
why he had not said that acting was his strong 
point, he answered very quietly : — “I don’t think 
you ever asked me. I used to act at Home with my 
sisters.” But no acting with girls could account for 
The Worm’s display that night. Personally I think 
it was in bad taste. Besides being dangerous. 
There is no sort of use in playing with fire, even for 
fun. 

The “ Shikarris ” made him President of the Begi- 
mental Dramatic Club ; and, when the Senior Sub- 
altern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The 
Worm sank the money in scenery and dresses. He 
was a good Worm ; and the “ Shikarris” are proud 
of him. The only drawback is that he has been 
christened a Mrs. Senior Subaltern ; ” and as there 
are now two Mrs. Senior Subalterns in the Station, 
this is sometimes confusing to strangers. 

Later on, I will tell you of a case something like 
this, but with all the jest left out and nothing in it 
but real trouble. 


THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP. 


167 


THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP. 

While the snaffle holds, or the “ long-neck ” stings, 
While the big beam tilts, or the last bell rings, 

While horses are horses to train and to race. 

Then women and wine take a second place 
For me — for me — 

While a short “ ten-three ” 

Has a field to squander or fence to face ! 

Song of the G. R. 

There are more ways of running a horse to suit 
your book than pulling his head off in the straight. 
Some men forget this. Understand clearly that all 
racing is rotten — as everything connected with 
losing money must be. Out here, in addition to its 
inherent rottenness, it has the merit of being two- 
thirds sham ; looking pretty on paper only. Every 
one knows every one else far too well for business 
purposes. How on earth can you rank and harry 
and post a man for his losings, when you are fond 
of his wife, and live in the same Station with him ? 
He says, “ on the Monday following,” “ I can’t 
settle just yet.” You say, “ All right, old man,” 
and think yourself lucky if you pull off nine hundred 
out of a two-thousand-rupee debt. Any way you 
look at it, Indian racing is immoral, and expensively 
immoral. "Which is much worse. If a man wants 
your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round 


168 


PLAIN TALES FKOM THE HILLS. 


a subscription-list, instead of juggling about the 
country, with an Australian larrikin ; a “ brumby,” 
with as much breed as the boy a brace of chumars 
in gold-laced caps ; three or four ^Ma-ponies with 
hogged manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a 
mare called Arab because she has a kink in her flag. 
Pacing leads to the shroff quicker than anything 
else. But if you have no conscience and no senti- 
ments, and good hands, and some knowledge of 
pace, and ten years’ experience of horses, and several 
thousand rupees a month, I believe that you can 
occasionally contrive to pay your shoeing-bills. 

Did you ever know Shackles — b. w. g., 15. 13-8 — 
coarse, loose, mule-like ears — barrel as long as a 
gate-post — tough as a telegraph-wire — and the 
queerest brute that ever looked through a bridle ? 
He was of no brand, being one of an ear-nicked 
mob taken into the Bucephalus at £4-10s. a head to 
make up freight, and sold raw and out of condition 
at Calcutta for Ks. 275. People who lost money on 
him called him a “ brumby ; ” but if ever any horse 
had Harpoon’s shoulders and The Gin’s temper, 
Shackles was that horse. Two miles was his own 
particular distance. He trained himself, ran him- 
self, and rode himself ; and, if his jockey insulted 
him by giving him hints, he shut up at once and 
bucked the boy off. He objected to dictation. 
Two or three of his owners did not understand this, 
and lost mon&y in consequence. At last he was 
bought by a man who discovered that, if a race was 
to be won, Shackles, and Shackes only, vculd win 


THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP. 


169 


it in his own way, so long as his jockey sat still. 
This man had a riding-boy called Brunt — a lad from 
Perth, West Australia — and he taught Brunt, with 
a trainer’s whip, the hardest thing a jock can learn 
— to sit still, to sit still, and to keep on sitting still. 
When Brunt fairly grasped this truth, Shackes dev- 
astated the country. No weight could stop him at 
his own distance ; and the fame of Shackles spread 
from Ajmir in the South, to Chedputter in the 
North. There was no horse like Shackles, so long 
as he was allowed to do his work in his own way. 
But he was beaten in the end ; and the story of his 
fall is enough to make angels weep. 

At the lower end of the Chedputter race-course, 
just before the turn into the straight, the track 
passes close to a couple of old brick-mounds enclos- 
ing a funnel-shaped hollow. The big end of the 
funnel is not six feet from the railings on the off- 
side. The astounding peculiarity of the course is 
that, if you stand at one particular place, about 
half a mile away, inside the course, and speak at 
ordinary pitch, your voice just hits the funnel of 
the brick mounds and makes a curious whining echo 
there. A man discovered this one morning by 
accident while out training with a friend. He 
marked the place to stand and speak from with a 
couple of bricks, and he kept his knowledge to 
himself. Every peculiarity of a course is 'worth 
remembering in a country where rats play the mis- 
cnief with the elephant-litter, and Stewards build 
jumps to suit their own stables. This man ran a 


170 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


very fairish country-bred, a long, racking high mare 
with the temper of a fiend, and the paces of an airy 
wandering seraph — a drifty, glidy stretch. The 
mare was, as a delicate tribute to Mrs. Reiver, 
called “ The Lady Regula Baddun ” — or for short, 
Regula Baddun. 

Shackles’ jockey, Brunt, was a quiet well-behaved 
boy, but his nerves had been shaken. He began 
his career by riding jump-races in Melbourne, where 
a few Stewards want lynching, and was one of the 
jockeys who came through the awful butchery — 
perhaps you will recollect it — of the Maribyrnong 
Plate. The walls were colonial ramparts — logs of 
jarrah spiked into masonry — with wings as strong 
as Church buttresses. Once in his stride, a horse 
had to jump or fall. He couldn’t run out. In the 
Maribyrnong Plate, twelve horses were jammed at 
the second wall. Red Hat, leading, fell this side, 
and threw out The Glen, and the ruck came up 
behind and the space between wing and wing was 
one struggling, screaming, kicking shambles. Four 
jockeys were taken out dead ; three were very badly 
hurt, and Brunt was among the three. He told 
the story of the Maribyrnong Plate sometimes ; and 
when he described how Whalley on Red Eat, said, 
as the mare fell under him “ God ha* mercy, I’m 
done for ! ” and how, next instant, Sithee There 
and White Otter had crushed the life out of poor 
Whalley, and the dust hid a small hell of men and 
horses, no one marveled that Brunt had dropped 
jump-races and Australia together. Regula Bad 


THE BROKEN-LINK HANDICAP. I7l 

dun’s owner knew that story by heart. Brunt 
never varied it in the telling. He had no education. 

Shackles came to the Chedputter Autumn races 
one year, and his owner walked about insulting the 
sportsmen of Chedputter generally, till they went 
to the Honorary Secretary in a body and said : — 
“'Appoint Handicappers, and arrange a race which 
shall break Shackles and humble the pride of his 
owner.” The Districts rose against Shackles and 
sent up of their best ; Ousel who was supposed to 
be able to do his mile in 1-53 ; Petard, the stud- 
bred, trained by a cavalry regiment who knew how 
to train; Gringalet, the ewe-lamb of the 75th; 
Bobolink, the pride of Peshawar ; and many others. 

They called that race The Broken-Link Handicap, 
because it was to smash Shackles ; and the Handi- 
cappers piled on the weights, and the Fund gave 
eight hundred rupees, and the distance was “ round 
the course for all horses.” Shackles’ owner said 
“ You can arrange the race with regard to Shackles 
only. So long as you don’t bury him under weight- 
cloths, I don’t mind.” Begula Baddun’s owner 
said: — “I throw in my mare to fret Ousel. Six 
furlongs is Regula’s distance, and she will then lie 
down and die. So also will Ousel, for his jockey 
doesn’t understand a waiting race.” How, this was 
a lie, for Kegula had been in work for two months 
at Dehra, and her chances were good, always sup- 
posing that Shackles broke a blood-vessel — or Brunt 
moved on Kim-. 

The plunging in the lotteries was fine. They filled 


172 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

eight thousand-rupee lotteries on the Broken-link 
Handicap, and the account in the Pioneer said that 
“favoritism was divided.” In plain English, the 
various contingents were wild on their respective 
horses ; for the Handicappers had done their work 
well. The Honorary Secretary shouted himself 
hoarse through the din ; and the smoke of the che- 
roots was like the smoke, and the rattling of the 
dice-boxes like the rattle of the small armfire. 

Ten horses started — very level — and Begula Bad 
dun’s owner cantered out on his back to a place in- 
side the circle of the course, where two bricks had 
been thrown. He faced towards the brick-mounds 
at the lower end of the course and waited. 

The story of the running is in the Pioneer . At 
the end of the first mile, Shackles crept out of the 
ruck, well on the outside, ready to get round the 
turn, lay hold of the bit and spin up the straight 
before the others knew he had got away. Brunt 
was sitting still, perfectly happy, listening to the 
“drum, drum , drum ” of the hoofs behind, and 
knowing that, in about twenty strides, Shackles 
would draw one deep breath and go up the last half- 
mile like the “Flying Dutchman.” As Shackles 
went short to take the turn and came abreast of the 
brick-mound, Brunt heard, above the noise of the 
wind in his ears, a whining, wailing voice on the 
offside, saying : — “ God ha’ mercy, I’m done for ! ” 
In one stride, Brunt saw the whole seething smash 
of the Maribyrnong Plate before him, started in his 
saddle and gave a yell of terror. The start brought 


THE BROKEN- LINK HANDICAP. 173 

the heels into Shackles’ side, and the scream hurt 
Shackles’ feelings. He couldn’t stop dead ; but he 
put out his feet and slid along for fifty yards, and 
then, very gravely and judicially, bucked off Brunt 
— a shaking, terror-stricken lump, while Begula Bad- 
dun made a neck-and-neck race with Bobolink up 
the straight, and won by a short head — Petard a 
bad third. Shackles’ owner, in the Stand, tried to 
think that his field-glasses had gone wrong. Kegula 
Baddun’s owner, waiting by the two bricks, gave 
one deep sigh of relief, and cantered back to the 
stand. He had won, in lotteries and bets, about 
fifteen thousand. 

It was a broken-link Handicap with a vengeance. 
It broke nearly all the men concerned, and nearly 
broke the heart of Shackles’ owner. He went down 
to interview Brunt. The boy lay, livid and gasping 
with fright, where he had tumbled off. The sin of 
losing the race never seemed to strike him. All he 
knew was that Whalley had “ called ” him, that the 
“ call ” was a warning ; and, were he cut in two for 
it, he would never get up again. His nerve had 
gone altogether, and he only asked his master to 
give him a good thrashing, and let him go. He 
was fit for nothing, he said. He got his dismissal, 
and crept up to the paddock, white as chalk, with 
blue lips, his knees giving way under him. People 
said nasty things in the paddock ; but Brunt never 
heeded. He changed into tweeds, took his stick 
and went down the road, still shaking with fright, 
and muttering over and over again : — “ God ha’ mer* 


174 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


cy, I’m done for ! ” To the best of my knowledge 
and belief he spoke the truth. 

So now you know how the Broken-link Handicap 
was run and won. Of course you don’t believe it. 
You would credit anything about Russia’s designs 
on India, or the recommendations of the Currency 
Commission ; but a little bit of sober fact is more 
than you can stand I 


BEYOND THE PALE. 


175 


BEYOND THE PALE. 


“ Love heeds not caste nor sleep a broken bed. I went in 
search of love and lost myself.” 

Hindu Proverb. 

A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own 
caste, race and breed. Let the White go to the 
White and the Black to the Black. Then, whatever 
trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things — 
neither sudden, alien nor unexpected. 

This is the story of a man who wilfully stepped 
beyond the safe limits of decent every-day society, 
and paid for it heavily. 

He knew too much in the first instance ; and he 
saw too much in the second. He took too deep an 
interest in native life; but he will never do so 
again. 

Deep away in the heart of the City, behind Jitha 
Megji’s bustee , lies Amir Nath’s Gully, which ends 
in a dead-wall pierced by one grated window. At 
the head of the Gully is a big cowbyre, and the 
walls on either side of the Gully are without win- 
dows. Neither Suchet Singh nor Gaur Chand ap- 
prove of their women-folk looking into the world. 
If Durga Charan had been of their opinion, he would 
have been a happier man to-day, and little Bisesa 
would have been able to knead her own bread. Her 


176 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


room looked out through the grated window into 
the narrow dark Gully where the sun never came 
and where the buffaloes wallowed in the blue slime. 
She was a widow, about fifteen years old, and she 
prayed the Gods, day and night, to send her a lover ; 
for she did not approve of living alone. 

One day, the man — Trejago his name was — came 
into Amir JSTath’s Gully on an aimless wandering ; 
and, after he had passed the buffaloes, stumbled 
over a big heap of cattle-food. 

Then he saw that the Gully ended in a trap, and 
heard a little laugh from behind the grated window. 
It was a pretty little laugh, and Trejago, knowing 
that, for all practical purposes, the old Arabian 
Nights are good guides, went forward to the win- 
dow, and whispered that verse of “ The Love Song 
of Har Dyal ” which begins : 

Can a man stand upright in the face of the naked Sun ; or 
a Lover in the Presence of his Beloved ? 

If my feet fail me, O Heart of my Heart, am I to blame, 
being blinded by the glimpse of your beauty? 

There came the faint tchinks of a woman’s brace- 
lets from behind the grating, and a little voice went 
on with the song at the fifth verse : 

Alas ! alas ! Can the Moon tell the Lotus of her love when 
the Gate of Heaven is shut and the clouds gather for the 
rains? 

They have taken my Beloved, and driven her with the pack- 
horses to the North. 

There are iron chains on the feet that were set on my heart. 

Call to the bowman to make ready 


BEYOND THE PALE. 


177 


The voice stopped suddenly, and Trejago walked 
out of Amir Nath’s Gully, wondering who in the 
world could have capped “ The Love Song of Har 
Dyal” so neatly. 

Next morning as he was driving to office, an old 
woman threw a packet into his dog-cart. In the 
packet was the half of a broken glass bangle, one 
flower of the blood-red dhak, a pinch of bhusa or 
cattle-food, and eleven cardamons. That packet 
was a letter — not a clumsy compromising letter, but 
an innocent unintelligible lover’s epistle. 

Trejago knew far too much about these things, 
as I have said. No Englishman should be able to 
translate object-letters. But Trejago spread all the 
trifles on the lid of his office-box and began to 
puzzle them out. 

A broken glass-bangle stands for a Hindu widow 
all India over ; because, when her husband dies a 
woman’s bracelets are broken on her wrists. Tre- 
jago saw the meaning of the little bit of the glass. 
The flower of the dhak means diversely “ desire,” 
“ come,” “ write,” or “danger,” according to the 
other things with it. One cardamon means “jeal- 
ousy ; ” but when any article is duplicated in an 
object-letter, it loses its symbolic meaning and 
stands merely for one of a number indicating time, 
or, if incense, curds, or saffron be sent also, place 
The message ran then “ A wido w—dhak flower 
and Musa — at eleven o’clock.” The pinch of bhusa 
enlightened Trejago. He saw— this kind of letter 
leaves much to instinctive knowledge— that the 


178 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


bhusa referred to the big heap of cattle- food over 
which he had fallen in Amir Nath’s Gully, and that 
the message must come from the person behind the 
grating ; she being a widow. So the message ran 
then : — “ A widow, in the Gully in which is the 
heap of bhusa, desires you to come at eleven 
o’clock.” 

Trejago threw all the rubbish into the fireplace 
and laughed. He knew that men in the East do 
not make love under windows at eleven in the fore- 
noon, nor do women fix appointments a week in 
advance. So he went, that very night at eleven, 
into Amir Nath’s Gully, clad in a boorha , which 
cloaks a man as well as a woman. Directly the 
gongs in the City made the hour, the little voice 
behind the grating took up “ The Love Song of Har 
Dyal” at the verse where the Panthan girl calls 
upon Har Dyal to return. The song is really pretty 
in the Vernacular. In English you miss the wail of 
it. It runs something like this : — 

Alone upon the housetops, to the North 
I turn and watch the lightning in the sky*— * 

The glamour of thy footsteps in the North* 

Come back to me , Beloved , or Idle t 

Below my feet the still bazar is laid 
Far, far below the weary camels lie,— 

The camels and the captives of thy raid. 

Come back to me, Beloved , or 1 die ! 

My father’s wife is old and harsh with years, 

And drudge of all my father’s house am L— 

My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears, 

Come back to me, Beloved , or I die / 


BEYOND THE PALE. 179 

As the song stopped, Trejago stepped up under 
the grating and whispered : — “ I am here.” 

Bisesa was good to look upon. 

That night was the beginning of many strange 
things, and of a double life so wild that Trejago to- 
day sometimes wonders if it were not all a dream. 
Bisesa or her old handmaiden who had thrown the 
object-letter had detached the heavy grating from 
the brick-work of the wall ; so that the window slid 
inside, leaving only a square of raw masonry into 
which an active man might climb. 

In the daytime, Trejago drove through his routine 
of office-work, or put on his calling-clothes and 
called on the ladies of the Station ; wondering how 
long they would know him if they knew of poor 
little Bisesa. At night, when all the City was still, 
came the walk under the evil-smelling boorJca, the 
patrol through Jitha Megji’s bustee, the quick turn 
into Amir Nath’s Gully between the sleeping cattle 
and the dead walls, and then, last of all, Bisesa, and 
the deep, even breathing of the old woman who 
slept outside the door of the bare little room that 
Durga Charan allotted to his sister’s daughter. 
Who or what Durga Charan was, Trejago never 
inquired ; and why in the world he was not dis- 
covered and knifed never occurred to him till his 

madness was over, and Bisesa But this 

comes later. 

Bisesa was an endless delight to Trejago. She 
was as ignorant as a bird ; and her distorted ver- 
sions of the rumors from the outside world that had 


180 


PLAIN tales from the hills. 


reached her in her room, amused Trejago almost as 
much as her lisping attempts to pronounce his 
name — “ Christopher.” The first syllable was al- 
ways more than she could manage, and she made 
funny little gestures with her roseleaf hands, as one 
throwing the name away, and then, kneeling be- 
fore Trejago asked him, exactly as an English- 
woman would do, if he were sure he loved her. 
Trejago swore that he loved her more than any 
one else in the world. Which was true. 

After a month of this folly, the exigencies of his 
other life compelled Trejago to be especially atten- 
tive to a lady of his acquaintance. You may take 
it for a fact that anything of this kind is not only 
noticed and discussed by a man’s own race but by 
some hundred and fifty natives as well. Trejago 
had to walk with this lady and talk to her at the 
Band-stand, and once or twice to drive with her ; 
never for an instant dreaming that this would affect 
his dearer out-of-the-way life. But the news flew, 
in the usual mysterious fashion, from mouth 
to mouth, till Bisesa’s duenna heard of it and told 
Bisesa. The child was so troubled that she did the 
household work evilly, and was beaten by Durga 
Charan’s wife in consequence. 

A week later, Bisesa taxed Trejago with the flir- 
tation. She understood no gradations and spoke 
openly. Trejago laughed and Bisesa stamped her 
little feet — little feet, light as marigold flowers, 
that could lie in the palm of a man’s one hand. 

Much that is written about “ Oriental passion and 


BEYOND THE PALE. 


181 


impulsiveness” is exaggerated and compiled at 
second-hand, but a little of it is true ; and when an 
Englishman finds that little, it is quite as startling 
as any passion in his own proper life. Bisesa, raged 
and stormed, and finally threatened to kill herself 
if Trejago did not at once drop the alien Memsahib 
who had come between them. Trejago tried to ex- 
plain, and to show her that she did not understand 
these things from a Western standpoint. Bisesa 
drew herself up, and said simply : 

“ I do not. I know only this — it is not good that 
I should have made you dearer than my own heart 
to me, Sahib. You are an Englishman. I am only 
a black girl — ” she was fairer than bar-gold in the 
Mint, — “and the widow of a black man.” 

Then she sobbed and said : “ But on my soul and 
my Mothers soul, I love you. There shall no harm 
come to you, whatever happens to me.” 

Trejago argued with the child, and tried to soothe 
her, but she seemed quite unreasonably disturbed. 
Nothing would satisfy her save that all relations 
between them should end. He was to go away 
at once. And he went. As he dropped out at the 
window, she kissed his forehead twice, and he 
walked home wondering. 

A week, and then three weeks, passed without a 
sign from Bisesa. Trejago, thinking that the rup- 
ture had lasted quite long enough, went down to Amir 
Nath’s Gully for the fifth time in the three weeks, 
hoping that his rap at the sill of the shifting grat- 
ing would be answered. He was not disappointed 


182 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


There was a young moon, and one stream of light 
fell down into Amir Nath’s Gully, and struck the 
grating which was drawn away as he knocked. 
From the black darK, Bisesa held out her arms into 
the moonlight. Both hands had been cut off at the 
wrists, and the stumps were nearly healed. 

Then, as Bisesa bowed her head between her 
arms ana sobbed, some one in the room grunted like 
a wild beast, and something sharp, — knife, sword or 
spear, — thrust at Trejago in his boorlca. The stroke 
missed his body, but cut into one of the muscles of 
the groin, and he limped slightly from the wound 
for the rest of his days. 

The grating went into its place. There was no 
sign whatever from inside the house, — nothing but 
the moonlight strip on the high wall, and the black- 
ness of Amir Nath’s Gully behind. 

The next thing Trejago remembers, after raging 
and shouting like a madman between those pitiless 
walls, is that he found himself near the river as the 
dawn was breaking, threw away his boorlca and 
went home bareheaded. 

• »••••• 

What the tragedy was — whether Bisesa had, in 
a fit of causeless despair told everything, or the 
intrigue had been discovered and she tortured to 
tell ; whether Durga Charan knew his name and 
what became of Bisesa — Trejago does not know to 
this day. Something horrible had happened, and 
the thought of what it must have been comes upon 
Trejago in the night now and again, and keeps him 


BEYOND THE PALE. 183 

company till the morning . O ne special feature of the 
case is that he does not know where lies the front 
of Durga Charan’s house. It may open on to a 
courtyard common to two or more houses, or it may 
lie behind any one of the gates of Jitka Megji’s 
bustee . Trejago cannot tell. He cannot get Bisesa 
— poor little Bisesa — back again. He has lost her 
in the City where each man’s house is as guarded 
and as unknowable as the grave; and the grating 
that opens into Amir Hath’s Gully has been walled 
up. 

But Trejago pays his calls regularly, and is reck- 
oned a very decent sort of man. 

There is nothing peculiar about him, except a 
slight stiffness, caused by a riding-strain, in the 
right leg. 


184 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


IN ERROR 

They burnt a corpse upon the sand— 

The light shone out afar ; 

It guided home the plunging boats 
That beat from Zanzibar. 

Spirit of Fire, where’er Thy altars rise, 

Thou art Light of Guidance to our eyes ! 

Salsette Boat-Song . 

These is hope for a man who gets publicly and 
riotously drunk more often than he ought to do ; 
but there is no hope for the man who drinks secretly 
and alone in his own house — the man who is never 
seen to drink. 

This is a rule ; so there must be an exception to 
prove it. Moriarty’s case was that exception. 

He was a Civil Engineer, and the Government, 
very kindly, put him quite by himself in an out- 
district, with nobody but natives to talk to and a 
great deal of work to do. He did his work well in 
the four years he was utterly alone ; but he picked 
up the vice of secret and solitary drinking, and came 
up out of the wilderness more old and worn and 
haggard than the dead-alive life had any right to 
make him. You know the saying that a man who 
has been alone in the jungle for more than a year is 
never quite sane all his life after. People credited 


IN ERROR. 


185 


Moriarty ’s queerness of manner and mood}^ ways to 
the solitude, and said that it showed how Govern- 
ment spoilt the futures of its best men. Moriarty 
had built himself the plinth of a very good reputation 
in the bridge-dam-girder line. But he knew, every 
night of the week, that he was taking steps to un- 
dermine that reputation with L. L. L. and “ Chris- 
topher ” and little nips of liqueurs, and filth of that 
kind. He had a sound constitution and a great 
brain, or else he would have broken down and died 
like a sick camel in the district, as better men have 
done before him. 

Government ordered him to Simla after he had 
come out of the desert ; and he went up meaning 
to try for a post then vacant. That season, Mrs. 
Reiver — perhaps you will remember her — was in 
the height of her power, and many men lay under 
her yoke. Everything bad that could be said has 
already been said about Mrs. Reiver, in another tale. 
Moriarty was heavily-built and handsome, very 
quiet and nervously anxious to please his neighbors 
when he wasn’t sunk in a brown study. He started 
a good deal at sudden noises or if spoken to without 
warning ; and when you watched him drinking his 
glass of water at dinner, you could see the hand 
shake a little. But all this was put down to nerv- 
ousness, and the quiet, steady, “ sip-sip-sip, fill and 
sip-sip- sip, again,” that went on in his own room 
when he was by himself, was never known. Which 
was miraculous, seeing how everything in a man’s 
private life is public property out here. 


186 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Moriarty was drawn, not into Mrs. Reiver’s set^ 
because they were not his sort, but into the powej 
of Mrs. Reiver, and he fell down in front of her anf> 
made a goddess of her. This was due to his coming 
fresh out of the jungle to a big town. He could not 
scale things properly or see who was what. 

Because Mrs. Reiver was cold and hard, he said 
she was stately and dignified. Because she had no 
brains, and could not talk cleverly, he said she was 
reserved and shy. Mrs. Reiver shy ! Because she 
was unworthy of honor or reverence from any one, 
he reverenced her from a distance and dowered her 
with all the virtues in the Bible and most of those 
in Shakespeare. 

This big, dark, abstracted man who was so nerv- 
ous when a pony cantered behind him, used to moon 
in the train of Mrs. Reiver, blushing with pleasure 
when she threw a word or two his way. His ad- 
miration was strictly platonic : even other women 
saw and admitted this. He did not move out in 
Simla, so he heard nothing against his idol : which 
was satisfactory. Mrs. Reiver took no special 
notice of him, beyond seeing that he was added to 
her list of admirers, and going for a walk with him 
now and then, just to show that he was her prop- 
erty, claimable as such. Moriarty must have done 
most of the talking, for Mrs. Reiver couldn’t talk 
much to a man of his stamp; and the little she 
said could not have been profitable. What Mori- 
arty believed in, as he had good reason to, was 
Mrs. Reiver’s influence over him, and, in that 


IN ERROR. 187 

belief, set himself seriously to try to do away with 
the vice that only he himself knew of. 

His experiences while he was fighting with it 
must have been peculiar, but he never described 
them. Sometimes he would hold off from every- 
thing except water for a week. Then, on a rainy 
night, when no one had asked him out to dinner, 
and there was a big fire in his room, and everything 
comfortable, he would sit down and make a big 
night of it by adding little nip to little nip, planning 
big schemes of reformation meanwhile, until he 
threw himself on his bed hopelessly drunk. He 
suffered next morning. 

One night, the big crash came. He was troubled 
in his own mind over his attempts to make himself 
“ worthy of the friendship ” of Mrs. Reiver. The 
past ten days had been very bad ones, and the end 
of it all was that he received the arrears of two and 
three quarter years of sipping in one attack of de- 
lirium tremens of the subdued kind ; beginning with 
suicidal depression, going on to fits and starts and 
hysteria, and ending with downright raving. As 
he sat in a chair in front of the fire, or walked up 
and down the room picking a handkerchief to pieces, 
you heard what poor Moriarty really thought of 
Mrs. Reiver, for he raved about her and his own 
fall for the most part ; though he raveled some P. 
W. D. accounts into the same skein of thought. He 
talked and talked, and talked in a low dry whisper 
to himself, and there was no stopping him. He 
seemed to know that there was something wrong, 


188 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

and twice tried to pull himself together and confer 
rationally with the Doctor ; but his mind ran out 
of control at once, and he fell back to a whisper 
and the story of his troubles. It is terrible to hear 
a big man babbling like a child of all that a man 
usually locks up, and puts away in the deep of his 
heart. Mori arty read out his very soul for the 
benefit of any one who was in the room between 
ten-thirty that night and two-forty-five next morn- 
ing. 

From what he said, one gathered how immense 
an influence Mrs. Reiver held over him, and how 
thoroughly he felt for his own lapse. His whisper- 
ings cannot, of course, he put down here ; but they 
were very instructive as showing the errors of his 
estimates. 

"When the trouble was over, and his few acquaint- 
ances were pitying him for the bad attack of jungle- 
fever that had so pulled him down, Moriarty swore 
a big oath to himself and went abroad again with 
Mrs. Reiver till the end of the season, adoring her 
in a quiet and deferential way as an angel from 
heaven. Later on he took to riding — not hacking 
but honest riding — which was good proof that he 
was improving, and you could slam doors behind 
him without his jumping to his feet with a gasp. 
That, again, was hopeful. 

How he kept his oath, and what it cost him in 
the beginning robody knows. He certainly man- 
aged to compass the hardest thing that a man who 


IN ERROR. 


180 


has drank heavily can do. He took his peg and 
wine at dinner but he never drank alone, and never 
let what he drank have the least hold on him. 

Once he told a bosom-friend the story of his great 
trouble, and how the “ influence of a pure honest 
woman, and an angel as well” had saved him. 
When the man — startled at anything good being 
laid to Mrs. Reiver’s door — laughed, it cost him 
Moriarty’s friendship. Moriarty, who is married 
now to a woman ten thousand times better than 
Mrs. Reiver — a woman who believes that there is 
no man on earth as good and clever as her hushana 
— will go down to his grave vowing and protesting 
that Mrs. Reiver saved him from ruin in both 
worlds. 

That she knew anything of Moriarty’s weakness 
nobody believed for a moment. That she would 
have cut him dead, thrown him over, and acquainted 
all her friends with her discovery, if she had known 
of it, nobody who knew her doubted for an instant. 

Moriarty thought her something she never was, 
and in that belief saved himself. Which was just 
as good as though she had been everything that he 
had imagined. 

But the question is, what claim will Mrs. Reiver 
have to the credit of Moriarty’s salvation, when her 
day of reckoning comes 2 


190 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


A BANK FKATTD. 

He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse ; 

He purchased raiment and forebore to pay ; 

He struck a trusting junior with a horse, 

And won Gymkhanas in a doubtful way. 

Then, ’twixt a vice and folly, turned aside 
To do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied. 

The Mess Room. 

If Beggie Burke were in India now, he would 
resent this tale being told ; but as he is in Hongkong 
and won’t see it, the telling is safe. He was the 
man who worked the big fraud on the Sind and 
Sialkote Bank. He was manager of an up-country 
Branch, and a sound practical man with a large ex- 
perience of native loan and insurance work. He 
could combine the frivolities of ordinary life with 
his work, and yet do well. Beggie Burke rode any- 
thing that would let him get up, danced as neatly 
as he rode, and was wanted for every sort of amuse- 
ment in the Station. 

As he said himself, and as many men found out 
rather to their surprise, there were two Burkes, both 
very much at your service. “ Beggie Burke,” be- 
tween four and ten, ready for anything from a hot- 
weather gymkhanato a riding-picnic ; and, between 
ten and four, “ Mr. Beginald Burke, Manager of the 
Sind and Sialkote Branch Bank.” You might play 


A BANK FRAUD. 


191 


polo with him one afternoon and hear him express 
his opinions when a man crossed ; and you might 
call on him next morning to raise a two-thousand- 
rupee loan on a five hundred pound insurance-policy, 
eighty pounds paid in premiums. He would rec- 
ognize you, but you would have some trouble in 
recognizing him. 

The Directors of the Bank — it had its headquarters 
in Calcutta and its General Manager’s word carried 
weight with the Government — picked their men well. 
They had tested Reggie up to a fairly severe break- 
ing-strain. They trusted him just as much as 
Directors ever trust Managers. You must see for 
yourself whether their trust was misplaced. 

Reggie’s Branch was in a big Station, and worked 
with the usual staff — one Manager, one Accountant, 
both English, a Cashier, and a horde of native clerks ; 
besides the Police patrol at nights outside. The 
bulk of its work, for it was in a thriving district, 
was hoondi and accommodation of all kinds. A 
fool has no grip of this sort of business; and a 
slever man who does not go about among his clients, 
and know more than a little of their affairs, is 
worse than a fool. Reggie was young-looking, clean- 
shaved, with a twinkle in his eye, and a head that 
nothing short of a gallon of the Gunners’ Madeira 
could make any impression on. 

One day, at a big dinner, he announced casually 
that the Directors had shifted on to him a Natural 
Curiosity, from England, in the Accountant line. 
He was perfectly correct. Mr. Silas Riley, Ao 


192 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


countant, was a most curious animal — a long, gawky, 
rawboned Yorkshireman, full of the savage self- 
conceit that blossoms only in the best county m 
England. Arrogance was a mild word for the 
mental attitude of Mr. S. Eiley. He had worked 
himself up, after seven years, to a Cashier’s position 
in a Huddersfield Bank ; and all his experience lay 
among the factories of the North. Perhaps he 
would have done better on the Bombay side, where 
they are happy with one-half per cent, profits, and 
money is cheap. He was useless for Upper India 
and a wheat Province, where a man wants a large 
head and a touch of imagination if he is to turn out 
a satisfactory balance-sheet. 

He was wonderfully narrow-minded in business, 
and, being new to the country, had no notion that 
Indian banking is totally distinct from Home work. 
Like most clever self-made men, he had much sim- 
plicity in his nature ; and, somehow or other, had 
construed the ordinarily polite terms of his letter of 
engagement into a belief that the Directors had 
chosen him on account of his special and brilliant 
talents, and that they set great store by him. This 
notion grew and crystallized ; thus adding to his 
natural North-country conceit. Further, he was 
delicate, suffered from some trouble in his chest, 
and was short in his temper. 

You will admit that Eeggie had reason to call his 
new Accountant a Natural Curiosity. The two men 
failed to hit it off at all. Eiley considered Eeggie 
a wild, feather-headed idiot, given to Heaven only 


A BANK FRAUD. 


193 


knew what dissipation in low places called “ Messes,” 
and totally unfit for the serious and solemn vocation 
of banking. He could never get over Reggie’s look 
of youth and “ you-be-damned 99 air ; and he couldn’t 
understand Reggie’s friends — clean-built, careless 
men in the Army — who rode over to big Sunday 
breakfasts at the Bank, and told sultry stories till 
Riley got up and left the room. Riley was always 
showing Reggie how the business ought to be con- 
ducted, and Reggie had more than once to remind 
him that seven years’ limited experience between 
Huddersfield and Beverly did not qualify a man to 
steer a big up-country business. Then Riley sulked 
and referred to himself as a pillar of the Bank and 
a cherished friend of the Directors, and Reggie tore 
his hair. If a man’s English subordinates fail him 
in this country, he comes to a hard time indeed, 
for native help has strict limitations. In the winter 
Riley went sick for weeks at a time with his lung 
complaint, and this threw more work on Reggie. But 
he preferred it to the everlasting friction when 
Riley was well. 

One of the Traveling Inspectors of the Bank discov- 
ered these collapses and reported them to the Direc- 
tors. How Riley had been foisted on the Bank by an 
M. P. who wanted the support of Riley’s father, who, 
again, was anxious to get his son out to a warmer 
climate because of those lungs. The M. P. had 
interest in the Bank ; but one of the Directors wanted 
to advance a nominee of his own ; and, after Riley’s 
father had died, he made the rest of the Board see 


194 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


that an Accountant who was sick for half the year, 
had better give place to a healthy man. If Riley 
<( had known the real story of his appointment, he 
might have behaved better ; but knowing nothing, 
his stretches of sickness alternated with restless, 
persistent, inedding irritation of Reggie, and all the 
hundred ways in which conceit in a subordinate sit- 
uation can find play. Reggie used to call him strike 
ing and hair-curling names behind his back as a relief 
to his own feelings ; but he never abused him to his 
face, because he said : — “ Riley is such a frail beast 
that half of his loathsome conceit is due to pains in 
the chest.” 

Late one April, Riley went very sick indeed. The 
doctor punched him and thumped him, and told him 
he would be better before long. Then the doctor 
went to Reggie and said : — “ Do you know how sick 
your Accountant is ? ” “ No ! ” said Reggie — “ The 

worse the better, confound him ! He’s a clacking 
nuisance when he’s well. I’ll let you take away the 
Bank safe if you can drug him silent for this hot 
weather.” 

But the doctor did not laugh — “Man, I’m not 
joking,” he said. “ I’ll give him another three 
months in his bed and a week or so more to die in. 
On my honor and reputation that’s all the grace he 
has in this world. Consumption has hold of him to 
the marrow.” 

Reggie’s face changed at once into the face of “ Mr. 
Reginald Burke,” and he answered : — u What can I 
dot” 


A BANK FRAUD. 


195 


“ Nothing,” said the doctor. “ Fon all practical 
purposes the man is dead already. Keep him quiet 
and cheerful and tell him he’s going to recover. 
That’s all. I’ll look after him to the end, of 
course.” 

The doctor went away, and Keggie sat down to 
open the evening mail. His first letter was one from 
the Directors, intimating for his information that 
Mr. Riley was to resign, under a month’s notice, by 
the terms of his agreement, telling Reggie that their 
letter to Riley would follow and advising Reggie of 
the coming of anew Accountant, a man whom Reggie 
knew and liked. 

Reggie lit a cheroot, and, before he had finished 
smoking, he had sketched the outline of a fraud. 
He put away — “ burked ” — the Directors’ letter, and 
went in to talk to Riley who was as ungracious as 
usual, and fretting himself over the way the Bank 
would run during his illness. He never thought of 
the extra work on Reggie’s shoulders, but solely of 
the damage to his own prospects of advancement. 
Then Reggie assured him that everything would be 
well, and that he, Reggie, would confer with Riley 
daily on the management of the Bank. Riley was 
a little soothed, but he hinted in as many words that 
he did not think much of Reggie’s business capacity. 
Reggie was humble. And he had letters in his desk 
from the Directors that a Gilbarte or a Hardie might 
have been proud of ! 

The days passed in the big darkened house, and 
the Directors’ letter of dismissal to Riley came and 


196 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


was put away by Reggie who, every evening brought 
the books to Riley’s room, and showed him what 
had been going forward, while Riley snarled. 
Reggie did his best to make statements pleasing to 
Riley, but the Accountant was sure that the Bank 
was going to rack and ruin without him. In June, 
as the lying in bed told on his spirit, he asked 
whether his absence had been noted by the Directors, 
and Reggie said that they had written most sympa- 
thetic letters, hoping that he would be able to resume 
his valuable services before long. He showed Riley 
the letters : and Riley said that the Directors ought 
to have written to him direct. A few days later, 
Reggie opened Riley’s mail in the half-light of the 
room, and gave him the sheet — not the envelope — 
of a letter to Riley from the Directors. Riley said 
he would thank Reggie not to interfere with his 
private papers, specially as Reggie knew he was too 
weak to open his own letters. Reggie apologized. 

Then Riley’s mood changed, and he lectured 
Reggie on his evil ways: his horses and his bad 
friends. “ Of course, lying here on my back, Mr. 
Burke, I can’t keep you straight; but when I’m 
well, I do hope you’ll pay some heed to my words.” 
Reggie who had dropped polo, and dinners, and ten- 
nis, and all to attend to Riley, said that he was peni- 
tent and settled Riley’s head on the pillow and 
heard him fret and contradict in hard, dry, hacking 
whispers, without a sign of impatience. This at 
the end of a heavy day’s office work, doing double 
duty, in the latter half of June. 


A BANK FRAUD. 


197 


When the new Accountant came, Reggie told him 
the facts of the case, and announced to Riley that he 
had a guest staying with him. Riley said that he 
might have had more consideration than to entertain 
his u doubtful friends” at such a time. Reggie made 
Carron, the new Accountant, sleep at the Club in 
consequence. Carron’s arrival took some of the 
heavy work off his shoulders, and he had time to 
attend to Riley’s exactions — to explain, soothe, in- 
vent, and settle and resettle the poor wretch in bed, 
and to forge complimentary letters from Calcutta. 
At the end of the first month, Riley wished to send 
some money home to his mother. Reggie sent the 
draft. At the end of the second month, Riley’s 
salary came in just the same. Reggie paid it out of 
his own pocket ; and, with it wrote Riley a beauti- 
ful letter from the Directors. 

Riley was very ill indeed, but the flame of his life 
burnt unsteadily. Now and then he would be cheer- 
ful and confident about the future, sketching plans 
for going Home and seeing his mother. Reggie list- 
ened patiently when the office work was over, and 
encouraged him. 

At other times Riley insisted on Reggie’s reading 
the Bible and grim “ Methody ” tracts to him. Out 
of these tracts he pointed morals directed at his Man- 
ager. But he always found time to worry Reggie 
about the working of the Bank, and to show him 
where the weak points lay. 

This in-door, sick-room life and constant strains 
wore Reggie down a good deal, and shook his nerves, 


198 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and lowered his billiard-play by forty points. But 
the business of the Bank, and the business of the 
sick-room, had to go on, though the glass was 1160 
in the shade. 

At the end of the third month, Riley was sinking 
fast, and had begun to realize that he was very sick. 
But the conceit that made him worry Reggie, kept 
him from believing the worst. “He wants some 
sort of mental stimulant if he is to drag on,” said 
the doctor. “Keep him interested in life if you 
care about his living.” So Riley, contrary to all 
the laws of business and the finance, received a 25- 
per-cent. rise of salary from the Directors. The 
“mental stimulant” succeeded beautifully. Riley 
was happy and cheerful, and, as is often the case in 
consumption, healthiest in mind when the body was 
weakest. He lingered for a full month, snarling 
and fretting about the Bank, talking of the future, 
hearing the Bible read, lecturing Reggie on sin, 
and wondering when he would be able to move 
abroad. 

But at the end of September, one mercilessly hot 
evening, he rose up in his bed with a little gasp, and 
said quickly to Reggie : — “ Mr. Burke, I am going 
to die. I know it in myself. My chest is all hol- 
low inside, and there’s nothing to breathe with. 
To the best of my knowledge I have done nowt,” — 
he was returning to the talk of his boyhood — “ to 
lie heavy on my conscience. God be thanked, 1 
have been preserved from the grosser forms of sin i 
and I counsel you y Mr. Burke. . « 


A BANK FRAUD. 


199 


Here his voice died down, and Reggie stooped 
over him. 

“ Send my salary for September to my mother 
. . . . done great things with the "Bank if I had 
been spared .... mistaken policy .... no fault 
of mine. . . 

Then he turned his face to the wall and died. 

Reggie drew the sheet over Its face, and went 
out into the veranda, with his last “ mental stimu- 
lant ” — a letter of condolence and sympathy from 
the Directors — unused in his pocket. 

“ If Fd been only ten minutes earlier,” thought 
Reggie, “ I might have heartened him up to puli 
through another day.” 


200 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


TODS’ AMENDMENT. 

The World hath set its heavy yoke 
Upon the old white-bearded folk 
Who strive to please the King. 

God’s mercy is upon the young, 

God’s wisdom in the baby tongue 
That fears not anything. 

The Parable of Chajju Bhagat. 

Now Tods’ Mamma was a singularly charming 
woman, and every one in Simla knew Tods. Most 
men had saved him from death on occasions. He 
was beyond his ayah's control altogether, and per- 
iled his life daily to find out what would happen 
if you pulled a Mountain Battery mule’s tail. He 
was an utterly fearless young Pagan, about six years 
old, and the only baby who ever broke the holy 
calm of the supreme Legislative Council. 

It happened this way : Tods’ pet kid got loose, 
and fled up the hill, off the Boileaugunge Road, 
Tods after it, until it burst into the Viceregal Lodge 
lawn, then attached to “Peterhoff.” The Council 
were sitting at the time, and the windows were 
open because it was warm. The Red Lancer in 
the porch told Tods to go away ; but Tods knew 
the Red Lancer and most of the Members of Coun- 
cil personally. Moreover, he had firm hold of 


tods’ amendment. 


201 


the kid’s collar, and was being dragged all across 
the flower-beds. “ Give my salaam to the long 
Councilor Sahib , and ask him to help me take Moti 
back ! ” gasped Tods. The Council heard the noise 
through the open windows ; and, after an interval, 
was seen the shocking spectacle of a Legal Member 
and a Lieutenant-Governor helping, under the direct 
patronage of a Commander-in-Chief and a Viceroy, 
one small and very dirty boy in a sailor’s suit and a 
tangle of brown hair, to coerce a lively and rebel- 
lious kid. They headed it off down the path to the 
Mall, and Tods went home in triumph and told his 
Mamma that aU the Councilor Sahibs had been help- 
ing him to catch Moti. Whereat his Mamma 
smacked Tods for interfering with the administra- 
tion of the Empire ; but Tods met the Legal Mem- 
ber the next day, and told him in confidence that if 
the Legal Member ever wanted to catch a goat, he, 
Tods, would give him all the help in his power. 
u Thank you, Tods,” said the Legal Member. 

Tods was the idol of some eighty jhariipams, and 
half as many saises. He saluted them all as “ O 
Brother.” It never entered his head that any liv- 
ing human being could disobey his orders ; and he 
was the buffer between the servants and his Mamma’s 
wrath. The working of that household turned on 
Tods, who was adored by every one from the dhoby 
to the dog-boy. Even Futteh Khan, the villainous 
loafer fchit from Mussoorie, shirked risking Tods’ 
displeasure for fear his co-mates should look down 
on him. 


202 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

So Tods had honor in the land from Boileaugunge 
to Chota Simla, and ruled justly according to his 
lights. Of course, he spoke Urdu, but he had also 
mastered many queer side-speeches like the chotee 
bolee of the women, and held grave converse with 
shopkeepers and Hill-coolies alike. He was pre- 
cocious for his age, and his mixing with natives 
had taught him some of the more bitter truths of 
life ; the meanness and the sordidness of it. He 
used, over his bread and milk, to deliver solemn 
and serious aphorisms, translated from the vernac- 
ular into the English, that made his Mamma jump 
and vow that Tods must go home next hot weather. 

Just when Tods was in the bloom of his power, 
the Supreme Legislature were hacking out a Bill, 
for the Sub-Montane Tracts, a revision of the then 
Act, smaller than the Punjab Land Bill but affect- 
ing a few hundred thousand people none the less. 
The Legal Member had built, and bolstered, and 
embroidered, and amended that Bill, till it looked 
beautiful on paper. Then the Council began to 
settle what they called the “ minor details.” As 
if any Englishman legislating for natives knows 
enough to know which are the minor and which are 
the major points, from the native point of view, of 
any measure ! That Bill was a triumph of “ safe 
guarding the interests of the tenant.” One clause 
provided that land should not be leased on longer 
terms than five years at a stretch ; because, if the 
landlord had a tenant bound down for, say, twenty 
years, he would squeeze the very life out of him. 


tods’ amendment. 


203 


The notion was to keep up a stream of independent 
cultivators in the Sub-Montane Tracts ; and ethno- 
logically and politically the notion was correct. 
The only drawback was that it was altogether wrong. 
A native’s life in Indian implies the life of his son. 
Wherefore, you cannot legislate for one generation 
at a time. You must consider the next from the 
native point of view. Curiously enough, the native 
now and then, and in Northern India more partic- 
ularly, hates being over-protected against himself. 
There was a Naga village once, where they lived on 
dead and buried Commissariat mules .... But 
that is another story. 

For many reasons, to be explained later, the peo- 
ple concerned objected to the Bill. The Native 
Member in Council knew as much about Punjabis 
as he knew about Charing Cross. He had said in 
Calcutta that “ the Bill was entirely in accord with 
the desires of that large and important class, the 
cultivators ; ” and so on, and so on. The legal 
Member’s knowledge of natives was limited to Eng- 
lish-speaking Durbaris, and his own red chaprassis , 
the Sub-Montane Tracts concerned no one in par- 
ticular, the Deputy Commissioners were a good deal 
too driven to make representations, and the meas- 
ure was one which dealt with small landholders 
only. Nevertheless, the Legal Member prayed that 
it might be correct, for he was a nervously conscien 
tious man. He did not know that no man can tell 
what natives think unless he mixes with them with 
the varnish off. And not always then. But he did 


204 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


the best he knew. And the measure came up to the 
Supreme Council for the final touches, while Tods 
patroled the Burra Simla Bazar in his morning 
rides, and played with the monkey belonging to 
Ditta Mull, the bunnia , and listened, as a child lis- 
tens, to all the stray talk about this new freak of 
the Lat Sahib’s. 

One day there was a dinner-party, at the house 
of Tods’ Mamma, and the Legal Member came. 
Tods was in bed, but he kept awake till he heard the 
bursts of laughter from the men over the coffee. 
Then he paddled out in his little red flannel dressing- 
gown and his night-suit and took refuge by the side 
of his father, knowing that he would not be sent 
back. “ See the miseries of having a family ! ” said 
Tods’ father, giving Tods three prunes, some water 
in a glass that had been used for claret, and telling 
him to sit still. Tods sucked the prunes slowly, 
knowing that he would have to go when they were 
finished, and sipped the pink water like a man of 
the world, as he listened to the conversation. Pres- 
ently, the Legal Member, talking “ shop ” to the 
Head of a Department, mentioned his Bill by its 
full name — “ The Sub Montane Tracts Byotwari 
Bevised Enactment.” Tods caught the one native 
word and lifting up his small voice said : — 

“ Oh, I know all about that ! Has it been mur - 
ramutted yet, Councilor Sahib ? ” 

“ How much ? ” said the Legal Member. 

“ Murramutted — mended. — Put theek , you know — * 
made nice to please Ditta Mull l ” 


tods’ amendment. 205 

The Legal Member left his place and moved up 
next to Tods. 

“ What do you know about Ryotwari , little man ? ” 
he said. 

“ I’m not a little man, I’m Tods, and 1 know all 
about it. Ditta Mull, and Choga Lall, and Amir 
Nath, and — oh, lakhs of my friends tell me about it 
in the bazars when I talk to them.” 

“ Oh, they do — do they ? What do they saj., 
Tods ? ” 

Tods tucked his feet under his red flannel dressing- 
gown and said: — “ I must jink.” 

The Legal Member waited patiently. Then Tods, 
with infinite compassion : 

“ You don’t speak my talk, do you, Councilor 
Sahib f ” 

“ No ; I am sorry to say I do not,” said the Legal 
Member. 

“Very well,” said Tods, “I must fink in Eng- 
lish.” 

He spent a minute putting his ideas in order, and 
began very slowly, translating in his mind from the 
vernacular to English, as many Anglo-Indian chil- 
dren do. You must remember that the Legal Mem- 
ber helped him on by questions when he halted, for 
Tods was not equal to the sustained flight of oratory 
that follows. 

“ Ditta Mull says : — ■< This thing is the talk of a 
child, and was made up by fools. ’ But I don’t 
think you are a fool, Councilor Sahib” said Tods, 
hastily. “ You caught my goat. This is what 


206 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Ditta Mull says : — ‘ I am not a fool, and why should 
the Sirkar say I am a child ? I can see if the land is 
good and if the landlord is good. If I am a fool, 
the sin is upon my own head. For five years I take 
my ground for which I have saved money, and a wife 
I take too, and a little son is born.’ Ditta Mull has 
one daughter now, but he says he will have a son, 
soon. And he says : ‘At the end of five years, by 
this new bundobust , I must go. If I do not go, I 
must get fresh seals and takkus- stamps on the pa- 
pers, perhaps in the middle of the harvest, and to 
go to the law-courts once is wisdom, but to go twice 
is Jehannum .’ That is quite true,” explained Tods, 
gravely. “ All my friends say so. And Ditta Mull 
says: — 4 Always fresh takkus and paying money to 
vakils and chaprassis and law-courts every five 
years, or else the landlord makes me go. Why do I 
want to go ? Am I a fool ? If I am a fool and do 
not know, after forty years, good land when I see 
it, let me die ! But if the new bumdobust says for 
fifteen years, that it is good and wise. My little son 
is a man, and I am burnt, and he takes the ground 
or another ground, paying only once for the takkus - 
stamps on the papers, and his little son is born, and 
at the end of fifteen years is a man too. But what 
profit is there in five years and fresh papers ? Noth- 
ing but dikh, trouble, dikh. We are not young men 
who take these lands, but old ones — not jais, but 
tradesmen with a little money — and for fifteen years 
we shall have peace. Nor are we children that the 
Sirkar should treat us so.” 


tod's amendment. 


207 


Here Tods stopped short, for the whole table were 
listening. The Legal Member said to Tods: “Is 
that all ? ” 

“All I can remember,” said Tods. “But you 
should see Ditta Mull’s big monkey. It’s just like 
a Councilor Sahib” 

“ Tods ! Go to bed,” said his father. 

Tods gathered up his dressing-gown tail and de- 
parted. 

The Legal Member brought his hand down on the 
table with a crash — “ By Jove ! ” said the Legal 
Member, “I believe the boy is right. The short 
tenure is the weak point.” 

He left early, thinking over what Tods had said. 
Now, it was obviously impossible for the Legal 
Member to play with a bunnids monkey, by way 
of getting understanding ; but he did better. He 
made inquiries, always bearing in mind the fact that 
the real native — not the hybrid, University-trained 
mule— is as timid as a colt, and, little by little, he 
coaxed some of the men whom the measure con- 
cerned most intimately to give in their views, which 
squared very closely with Tods’ evidence. 

So the Bill Avas amended in that clause ; and the 
Legal Member was filled with an uneasy suspicion 
that Native Members represent very little except the 
Orders they carry on their bosoms. But he put 
the thought from him as illiberal. He was a most 
Liberal Man. 

After a time, the news spread through the bazars 
that Tods had got the Bill recast in the tenure-clause, 


208 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and ii Tods’ Mamma had not interfered, Tods would 
have made himself sick on the baskets of fruit and 
pistachio nuts and Cabuli grapes and almonds that 
crowded the veranda. Till he went Home, Tods 
ranked some few degrees before the Viceroy in 
popular estimation. But for the little life of him 
Tods could not understand why. 

In the Legal Member’s private-paper-box still lie* 
the rough draft of the Sub-Montane Tracts Ryoir 
wa/ri Revised Enactment ; and, opposite the twenty- 
second clause, penciled in blue chalk, and signed by 
the Legal Member, are the words “ Tods* Amend- 
a n&nL” 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. 209 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. 

Jain ’Ardin’ was a Sarjint’s wife, 

A Sarjint’s wife wus she. 

She married of ’im in Orldershort 
An’ corned acrost the sea. 

( Chorus ) ’Ave you never ’eard tell o’ Jain ’Ardin * ? 

Jain ’Ardin ’ ? 

Jain ’Ardin’? 

’Ave you never ’eard tell o’ Jain ’Ardin ’ ? 

The pride o’ the Companee f 

Old Barrack-Room Ballad . 

“ A gentleman who doesn’t know the Circassian 
Circle ought not to stand up for it — puttin’ every* 
body out.” That was what Miss McKenna said, and 
the Sergeant who was my vis-a-vis looked the same 
thing. I was afraid of Miss McKenna. She was six 
feet high, all yellow freckles and red hair, and was 
simply clad in white satin shoes, a pink muslin dress, 
an apple-green stuff sash and black silk gloves, with 
yellow roses in her hair. Wherefore I fled from 
Miss McKenna and sought my friend Private Mul- 
vaney who was at the cant — refreshment-table. 

“ So you’ve been dancin’ with little Jhansi Mc- 
Kenna, Sorr — she that’s goin’ to marry Corp’ril 
Slane ? Whin you next conversh wid your lorruds 
an’ your ladies, tell thim you’ve danced with little 
Jhansi. ’Tis a thing to be proud av.” 


210 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

But I wasn’t proud. I was humble. I saw a story 
in Private Mulvaney ’s eye ; and, besides, if he stayed 
too long at the bar, he would, I knew, qualify for 
more pack-drill. Kow to meet an esteemed friend 
doing pack-drill outside the guard-room, is embar- 
rassing, especially if you happen to be walking with 
his Commanding Officer. 

“Come on to the parade-ground, Mulvaney, it’s 
cooler there, and tell me about Miss McKenna. What 
is she, and who is she, and why is she called 
4 Jhansi ’ ? ” 

“ D’ye mane to say you’ve never heard av Ould 
Pummeloe’s daughter ? An’ you thinkin’ you know 
things! I’m wid ye in a minut’ whin me poipe’s 
lit.” 

W e came out under the stars. Mulvaney sat down 
on one of the artillery bridges, and began in the 
usual way : his pipe between his teeth, his big hands 
clasped and dropped between his knees, and his cap 
well on the back of his head : 

“Whin Mrs. Mulvaney that is, was Miss Shad 
that was, you were a dale younger than you are 
now, an’ the Army was dif’rint in sev’ril e-senshuls. 
Bhoys have no call fer to marry nowadays, an’ that’s 
how the Army has so few rale, good, honust, swearin’, 
strapagin’, tinder-hearted, heavy-futted wives as ut 
used to hav whin I was a Corp’ril. I was rejuced 
afterwards— but no mather — I was a Corp’ril wanst 
In thim times, a man lived an? died wid his rigimint ; 
an’ by natur’, he married whin he was a man. Whin 
I was Corp’ril — Mother av Hivin, how the rigimint 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. 211 

has died an’ been borrun since that day ! — my Color- 
Sar’jint was Ould McKenna, an’ a married man tu. 
Am’ his woife— his first woife, for he married three 
i times did McKenna — was Bridget McKenna, from 
Portarlington like mesilf. I’ve misremembered f what 
her first name was ; but in B Comp’ny we called her 
fi Ould Pummeloe ’ by reason av her figure, which was 
entirely cir-cum-fe-renshil. Like the big dhrum ! 
Kow that woman — God rock her sowl to rest in 
glory ! — was for everlastin’ havin’ childher ; an’ Mc- 
Kenna whin the fifth or sixth come squallin’ on to 
the musther-roil, swore he wud number them off in 
future. But Ould Pummeloe she prayed av him to 
shristen thim after the names of the stations they 
was borrun in. So there was Colaba McKenna an’ 
Muttra McKenna, an’ a whole Presidincy av other 
McKennas, an’ little Jhansi, dancin’ over yonder. 
Whin the children wasn’t bornin’, they was dying; 
for, av our childer die like sheep in these days, they 
died like flies thin. I lost me own little Shad — but 
no matther. ’Tis long ago, and Mrs. Mulvaney niver 
aad another. 

« I’m digresshin. Wan divil’s hot summer, there 
come an order from some mad ijjit, whose name I 
misremember, for the rigimint to go up-country. 
May be they wanted to know how the new rail car- 
ried throops. They knew! On me sowl, they 
knew before they was done ! Ould Pummeloe had 
just buried Muttra McKenna; an’ the season bein’ 
onwholesim, only little Jhansi McKenna, who was 
four year ould thin, was left on hand. 


212 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“ Five children gone in fourteen months. ’Twas 
harrd, wasn’t ut ? 

“ So we wint up to our new station in that blazin’ 
heat — may the curse av Saint Lawrence conshume 
the man who gave the ordher! Will I ivir forget 
that move ? They gave us two wake thrains to the 
rigimint ; an’ we was eight hundher’ and sivinty 
strong. There was A, B, C, an’ D Companies in 
the secon’ thrain, wid twelve women, no orficers’ 
ladies, an’ thirteen childher. We was to go six 
hundher’ miles, an’ railways was new in thim days. 
Whin we had been a night in the belly av the thrain 
— the men ragin’ in their shirts an’ dhrinkin’ any- 
thing they could find, an’ eatin’ bad fruit-stuff whin 
they cud, for we cudn’t stop em — I was a Corp’ril 
thin — the cholera bruk out wid the dawnin’ av the 
day. 

“ Pray to the Saints, you may niver see cholera 
in a throop-thrain ! ’Tis like the judgmint av 
God hittin’ down from the nakid sky! We run 
into a rest-camp — as ut might have been Ludianny, 
but not by any means so comfortable. The Orficer 
Commandin’ sent a telegrapt up the line, three 
hundher’ mile up, askin’ for help. Faith, we wanted 
ut, for ivry sowl av the followers ran for the 
dear life as soon as the thrain stopped ; an’ by 
the time that telegrapt was writ, there wasn’t a 
naygur in the station exceptin’ the telegrapt-clerh 
— an’ he only bekaze he was held down to his chair 
by the scruff av his sneakin’ black neck. Thin the 
day began wid the noise in the carr’ges, an the rat 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. 213 

tie av the men on the platform failin’ over, arms 
an’ all, as they stud for to answer the Comp’ny 
muster-roll before goin’ over to the camp. ’Tisn’i 
for me to say what like the cholera was like. May- 
be the Doctor cud ha’ tould, av he hadn’t dropped 
on to the platform from the door av a carriage 
where we was takin’ out the dead. He died wid the 
rest. Some bhoys had died in the night. We tuk 
out siven, and twinty more was sickenin’ as we tuk 
thim. The women was huddled up any ways, 
screamin’ wid fear. 

“ Sez the Commandin’ Officer, whose name I mis- 
remember : — 4 Take the women over to that tope av 
trees yonder. Get thim out av the camp. ’Tis no 
place for thim.’ 

44 Ould Pummeloe was sittin’ on her beddin’-rowl, 
try in’ to kape little Jhansi quiet. 4 Go off to that 
tope ! ’ sez the Orficer. ‘Go out av the men’s 
way ! ’ 

44 4 Be damned av I do! ’ sez Ould Pummeloe, an’ 
little Jhansi, squattin’ by her mother’s side, squeaks 
out : — 4 Be damned av I do,’ tu. Thin Ould Pum- 
meloe turns to the women an’ she sez : — 4 Are ye 
goin’ to let the bhoys die while you’re picnickin,’ 
ye sluts ? ’ sez she. 4 ’Tis wather they want. Come 
on an’ help.’ 

44 Wid that, she turns up her sleeves an’ steps out 
for a well behind the rest-camp — little Jhansi trot- 
tin’ behind wid a lotah an’ string, an’ the other 
women followin’ like lambs, wid horse-buckets and 
cookin’ degchies. Whin all the things was full, 


214 : 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Ould Pummeloe marches back into camp — ’twas like 
a battlefield wid all the glory missin’ — at the hid av 
the rigimint av women. 

“ ‘ McKenna, me man ! ’ she sez, wid a voice on 
her like grand-roun’s challenge, ‘ tell the bhoys to 
be quiet, Ould Pummeloe’s acomin’ to look afther 
thim — wid free dhrinks.’ 

“ Thin we cheered, and the cheerin’ in the lines 
was louder than the noise av the poor divils wid the 
sickness on thim. But not much. 

“ You see, we was a new an’ raw rigimint in those 
days, an’ we cud make neither head nor tail av the 
sickness ; an’ so we was useless. The men was 
goin’ roun’ an’ about like dumb sheep, waitin’ for 
the nex’ man to fall over, an’ sayin’ undher their 
spache : — 6 Fwhat is ut ? In the name av God fwhat 
is ut V ’Twas horrible. But through ut all, up an’ 
down, an’ down an’ up, wint Ould Pummeloe an’ 
little Jhansi — all we cud see av the baby, undher a 
dead man’s helmet wid the chin-strap swingin’ about 
her little stummick — up an’ down wid the wather 
and fwhat brandy there was. 

“ Kow an’ thin, Ould Pummeloe, the tears runnin’ 
down her fat, red face, sez : — 4 Me bhoys, me poor, 
dead darlin’ bhoys ! ’ But, for the most, she was 
thryin’ to put heart into the men an’ kape thim 
stiddy ; and little Jhansi was tellin’ thim all they 
wud be ‘better in the mornin’.’ ’Twas a thrick 
she’d picked up from hearing Ould Pummeloe whin 
Muttra was burnin’ out wid fever. In the mornin’ ! 
’Twas the iverlastin’ mornin’ at St. Peter’s Gate, 


THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT. 215 

was the mornin* for seven an’ twenty good men ; 
an’ twenty more was sick to the death in that bit- 
ter, burnin’ sun. But the women worked like 
angils, as I’ve said, an’ the men like divils, till two 
doctors come down from above, an’ we was res- 
cued. 

“ But, just before that, Ould Pummeloe, on her 
knees over a bhoy in my squad — right-cot man to me 
he was in the barrick — tellin’ him the worrud av the 
Church that never failed a man yet, sez : — 4 Hould me 
up, bhoys ! I’m feelin’ bloody sick ! ’ ’Twas the 
sun, not the cholera, did ut. She misremembered 
she was only wearin’ her ould black bonnet, an she 
died wid 6 McKenna, me man,’ houldin’ her up, an’ 
the bhoys howled whin they buried her. 

“ That night, a big wind blew, an’ blew, an’ blew, 
an’ blew the tents flat. But it blew the cholera 
away an’ niver another case there was all the while 
we was waitin’ — ten days in quarintin’. Av you 
will belave me, the thrack of the sickness in the 
camp was for all the worruld the thrack of a man 
walkin’ four times in a figur-av-eight through the 
tents. They say ’tis the Wandherin’ Jew takes the 
cholera wid him. I believe ut. 

“An, that” said Mulvaney, illogically, “is the 
cause why little Jhansi McKenna is fwhat she is. 
She was brought up by the Quarter-Master Ser- 
geant’s wife whin McKenna died, but she b’longs to 
B Comp’ny; an’ this tale I’m tellin’ you —wid a 
proper appreciashin av Jhansi McKenna — I’ve belted 
into every recruity av the Comp’ny as he was 


216 


PLAIN TAL E S FROM THE HILL&. 


drafted. Faith, ’twas me belted Corp’rii Slane into 
askin' the girl ! ” 

“ Not really ? ” 

“ Man, I did I She’s no beauty to look at, but 
she’s Ould Pummeloe’s daughter, an’ ’tis my juty to 
provide for her. Just before Slane got his wan- 
eight a day, I sez to him : — ‘ Slane,’ sez I, ‘ to-mor- 
row ’twill be insubordinashin av me to chastise 
you ; but, by the sowl av Ould Pummeloe, who is 
now in glory, av you don’t give me your worrud to 
ask Jhansi McKenna at wanst, I’ll peel the flesh off 
yer bones wid a brass huk to-night. ’Tis a disgrace 
to B Comp’ny she’s been single so long!’ sez I. 
"Was I goin’ to let a three-year-ould preshume to 
discoorse wid me , my will bein’ set ? No ! Slane 
wint an’ asked her. He’s a good bhoy is Slane. 
Wan av these days he’ll get into the Com’ssariat an 

dhrive a boggy wid his savin’s. So I provided 

for Ould Pummeloe’s daughter; an’ now you go 
along an’ dance again wid her.” 

And I did. 

I felt a respect for Miss Jhansi McKenna ; and I 
went to her wedding later on. 

Perhaps I will tell you about that one of these 


IK THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH. 


2U 


IN THE PKIDE OF HIS YOUTH. 

• Stopped in the straight when the race was his own l 
Look at him cutting it — cur ^;o 'he bone I ” 

Ask, ere the youngster be rated and chidden, 

What did he carry and h w wee he ridden ? 

Maybe they used him too much at the start ; 

Maybe Fate’s weight-cloths are breaking his heart.” 

Life’s Handicap. 

When I was telling you of the joke that The 
Worm played off on the Senior Subaltern, I prom- 
ised a somewhat similar tale, but with all the jest 
left out. This is that tale. 

Dicky Hatt was kidnapped in his early, early 
youth — neither by landlady’s daughter, housemaid, 
barmaid, nor cook, but by a girl so nearly of his 
own caste that only a woman could have said she 
was just the least little bit in the world below it. 
This happened a month before he came out to India, 
and five days after his one-and-twentieth birthdav. 
The girl was nineteen — six years older than Dicky 
in the things of this world, that is to say — and, for 
the time, twice as foolish as he. 

Excepting, always, falling off a horse there is 
nothing more fatally easy than marriage before the 
^Registrar. The ceremony costs less than fifty shil- 
lings, and is remarkably like walking into a pawn- 


218 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


shop. After the declarations of residence have 
been put in, four minutes will cover the rest of the 
proceedings — fees, attestation, and all. Then the 
Registrar slides the blotting-pad over the names, 
and says grimly with his pen between his teeth : — 
“ Now you’re man and wife ; ” and the couple walk 
out into the street, feeling as if something were 
horribly illegal somewhere. 

But that ceremony holds and can drag a man to 
his undoing just as thoroughly as the “ long as ye 
both shall live ” curse from the altar-rails, with the 
bridesmaids giggling behind, and “ The Voice that 
breathed o'er Eden ” lifting the roof off. In this 
manner was Dicky Hatt kidnapped, and he con- 
sidered it vastly fine, for he had received an ap- 
pointment in India which carried a magnificent 
salary from the Home point of view. The marriage 
was to be kept secret for a year. Then Mrs. Dicky 
Hatt was to come out and the rest of life was to be 
a glorious golden mist. That was how they sketched 
it under the Addison Road Station lamps ; and, 
after one short month, came Gravesend and Dicky 
steaming out to his new life, and the girl crying in 
a thirty-shillings a week bed-and-living-room, in a 
back-street off Montpelier Square near the Knights- 
bridge Barracks. 

But the country that Dicky came to was a hard 
land where “ men ” of twenty-one were reckoned 
very small boys indeed, and life was expensive. 
The salary that loomed so large six thousand miles 
away did not go far. Particularly when Dicky 


IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH. 219 

divided it by two, and remitted more than the fair 
half, at 1-6, to Montpelier Square. One hundred 
and thirty-five rupees out of three hundred and 
thirty is not much to live on ; but it was absurd to 
suppose that Mrs. Hatt could exist forever on the 
£20 held back by Dicky, from his outfit allowance. 
Dicky saw this and remitted at once ; always re- 
membering that Rs. 700 were to be paid, twelve 
months later, for a first-class passage out for a lady. 
When you add to these trifling details the natural 
instincts of a boy beginning a new life in a new 
country and longing to go about and enjoy himself, 
and the necessity for grappling with strange work 
— which, properly speaking, should take up a boy’s 
undivided attention — you will see that Dicky started 
handicapped. He saw it himself for a breath or 
two ; but he did not guess the full beauty of his 
future. 

As the hot weather began, the shackles settled on 
him and ate into his flesh. First would come letters 

big, crossed, seven sheet letters — from his wife, 

telling him how she longed to see him, and what a 
Heaven upon earth would be their property when 
they met. Then some boy of the chummery 
wherein Dicky lodged would pound on the door of 
his bare little room, and tell him to come out to 
look at a pony — the very thing to suit him. Dicky 
could not afford ponies. He had to explain this. 
Dicky could not afford living in the chummery, 
modest as it was. He had to explain this before he 
moved to a single room next the office where he 


220 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS* 

worked all day. He kept house on a green oil- 
cloth table-cover, one chair, one charpoy , one photo- 
graph, one tooth-glass, very strong and thick, a 
seven-rupee eight-anna filter, and messing by con- 
tract at thirty-seven rupees a month. Which last 
item was extortion. He had no punkah, for a 
punkah costs fifteen rupees a month ; but he slept 
on the roof of the oflice with all his wife’s letters 
under his pillow. How and again he was asked out 
to dinner where he got both a punkah and an iced 
drink. But this was seldom, for people objected to 
recognizing a boy who had evidently the instincts 
of a Scotch tallow-chandler, and who lived in such 
a nasty fashion. Dicky could not subscribe to any 
amusement, so he found no amusement except the 
pleasure of turning over his Bank-book and reading 
what it said about “ loans on approved security.” 
That cost nothing. He remitted through a Bombay 
Bank, by the way, and the Station knew nothing of 
his private affairs. 

Every month he sent Home all he could possibly 

spare for his wife and for another reason which 

was expected to explain itself shortly and would 
require more money. 

About this time, Dicky was overtaken with the 
nervous, haunting fear that besets married men 
when they are out of sorts. He had no pension to 
look to. What if he should die suddenly, and leave 
his wife unprovided for ? The thought used to lav 
hold of him in the still, hot nights on the roof, till 
the shaking of his heart made him think that he 


IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH. 221 

was going to die then and there of heart-disease. 
Now this is a frame of mind which no boy has a 
right to know. It is a strong man’s trouble ; but, 
coming when it did, it nearly drove poor punkah- 
less, perspiring Dicky Hatt mad. He could te]l no 
one about it. 

A certain amount of “ screw ” is as necessary for 
a man as for a billiard-ball. It makes them both do 
wonderful things. Dicky needed money badly, and 
he worked for it like a horse. But, naturally, the 
men who owned him knew that a boy can live very 
comfortably on a certain income — pay in India is a 
matter of age not merit, you see, and, if their par- 
ticular boy wished to work like two boys, Business 
forbid that they should stop him ! But Business 
forbid that they should give him an increase of pay 
at his present ridiculously immature age ! So Dicky 
won certain rises of salary — ample for a boy — not 
enough for a wife and a child — certainly too little 
for the seven -hundred-rupee passage that he and 
Mrs. Hatt had discussed so lightly once upon a 
time. And with this he was forced to be content. 

Somehow, all his money seemed to fade away in 
Home drafts and the crushing Exchange, and the 
tone of the Home letters changed and grew queru- 
lous. “ Why wouldn’t Dicky have his wife and the 
baby out ? Surely he had a salary — a fine salary — 
and it was too bad of him to enjoy himself in India. 
But would he — could he — make the next draft a 
little more elastic ? ” Here followed a list of baby’s 
kit, as long as a Parsee’s bill. Then Dicky, whose 


222 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

heart yearned to his wife and the little son he had 
never seen — which, again, is a feeling no boy is 
entitled to — enlarged the draft and wrote queer half 
boy, half-man letters, saying that life was not so 
enjoyable after all and would the little wife wait 
yet a little longer? But the little wife, however 
much she approved of money, objected to waiting, 
and there was a strange, hard sort of ring in her 
letters that Dicky didn’t understand. How could 
he, poor boy ? 

Later on still — just as Dicky had been told — 
a jpropos of another youngster who had “ made a 
fool of himself ” as the saying is — that matrimony 
would not only ruin his further chances of advance- 
ment, but would lose him his present appointment 
— came the news that the baby, his own little, little 
son, had died and, behind this, forty lines of an 
angry woman’s scrawl, saying that death might 
have been averted if certain things all costing money, 
had been done, or if the mother and the baby had 
been with Dicky. The letter struck at Dicky’s 
naked heart ; but, not being officially entitled to a 
baby, he could show no sign of trouble. 

How Dicky won through the next four months, 
and what hope be kept alight to force him into his 
work, no one dare say. He pounded on, the seven- 
hundred-rupee passage as far away as ever, and his 
style of living unchanged, except when he launched 
into a new filter. There was the strain of his office- 
work, and the strain of his remittances, and the 
knowledge of his boy’s death, which touched the 


IN THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH, 223 

boy more, perhaps, than it would have touched a 
man; and, beyond all, the enduring strain of his 
daily life. Gray-headed seniors who approved of 
his thrift and his fashion of denying himself every- 
thing pleasant, reminded him of the old saw that 
says : — 

“ If a youth would be distinguished in his art, art, art, 

He must keep the girls away from his heart, heart, heart.” 

And Dicky, who fancied he had been through 
every trouble that a man is permitted to know, had 
to laugh and agree ; with the last line of his bal- 
anced Bank book jingling in his head day and night. 

But he had one more sorrow to digest before the 
end. There arrived a letter from the little wife — 
the natural sequence of the others if Dicky had 
only known it — and the burden of that letter was 
“ gone with a handsomer man than you.” It was a 
rather curious production, without stops, something 
like this : — “ She was not going to wait forever and 
the baby was dead and Dicky was only a boy and 
he would never set eyes on her again and why 
hadn’t he waved his handkerchief to her when he 
left Gravesend and God was her judge she was a 
wicked woman but Dicky was worse enjoying him- 
self in India and this other man loved the ground 
she trod on and would Dicky ever forgive her for 
she would never forgive Dicky ; and there was no 
address to write to.” 

Instead of thanking his stars that he was free, 
Dicky discovered exactly how an injured husband 


224 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILU3. 


feels—again, not at all the knowledge to which a 
boy is entitled — for his mind went back to his wife 
as he remembered her in the thirty-shilling “ suite ” 
in Montpelier Square, when the dawn of his last 
morning in England was breaking, and she was cry- 
ing in the bed. Whereat he rolled about on his bed 
and bit his fingers. He never stopped to think 
whether, if he had met Mrs. Hatt after those two 
years, he would have discovered that he and she 
had grown quite different and new persons. This, 
theoretically, he ought to have done. He spent the 
night after the English Mail came in rather severe 
pain. 

Next morning, Dicky Hatt felt disinclined to 
work. He argued that he had missed the pleasur.. 
of youth. He was tired, and he had tasted all the 
sorrow in life before three and twenty. His Honor 
was gone — that was the man ; and now he, too, 
would go to the Devil — that was the boy in him . 
So he put his head down on the green oil-cloth 
table-cover, and wept before resigning his post, and 
all it offered. 

But the reward of his services came. He was 
given three days to reconsider himself, and the 
Head of the establishment, after some telegraphings, 
said that it was a most unusual step, but, in view of 
the ability that Mr. Hatt had displayed at such and 
such a time, at such and such junctures, he was in a 
position to offer him an infinitely superior post — first 
on probation, and later, in the natural course of 
things, on confirmation. “ And how much does the 


IK THE PRIDE OF HIS YOUTH. 225 

post carry $ ” said Dicky. “ Six hundred and fifty 
rupees,” said the Head slowly, expecting to see the 
young man sink with gratitude and joy. 

And it came then ! The seven hundred rupee 
passage, and enough to have saved the wife, and the 
little son, and to have allowed of assured and open 
marriage, came then. Dicky hurst into a roar of 
laughter — laughter he could not check — nasty, 
jangling merriment that seemed as if it would go 
on forever. When he had recovered himself he 
*said, quite seriously : — ‘ “ I’m tired of work. I’m an 
old man now. It’s about time I retired. And I 
will.” i 

“ The boy’s mad ! ” said the Head. 

I think he was right ; but Dicky Hatt never re- 
appeared to settle the question. 


226 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


pia 

Go, stalk the red deer o’er the heather, 

Ride, follow the fox if you can I 
But, for pleasure and profit together, 

Allow me the hunting of Man, — 

The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul 
To its ruin, — the hunting of Man. 

The Old Shikarri . 

I believe the difference began in the matter of a 
Horse, with a twist in his temper, whom Pinecoffin 
sold toNafferton and by whom Naff erton was nearly 
slain. There may have been other causes of offense ; 
the horse was the official stalking-horse. Naff erton 
was very angry ; but Pinecoffin laughed and said 
that he had never guaranteed the beast’s manners. 
Nafferton laughed, too, though he vowed that he 
would write off his fall against Pinecoffin if he 
waited five years. Now, a Dalesman from beyond 
Skipton will forgive an injury when the Strid lets a 
man live ; but a South Devon man is as soft as a 
Dartmoor bog. You can see from their names that 
Nafferton had the race-advantage of Pinecoffin. 
He was a peculiar man, and his notions of humor 
were cruel. He taught me a new and fascinating 
form of shihwr. He hounded Pinecoffin from Mith- 
ankot to J agadri, and from Gurgaon to Abbottabad 
— up and across the Punjab, a large province and in 


PIG. 


227 


places remarkably dry. He said that he had no in- 
tention of allowing Assistant Commissioners to “ sell 
him pups,” in the shape of ramping, screaming, 
country breds, without making their lives a burden 
to them. 

Most Assistant Commissioners develop a bent for 
some special work after their first hot weather in 
the country. The boys with digestions hope to write 
their names large on the Frontier, and struggle for 
dreary places like Bannu and Kohat. The bilious 
ones climb into the Secretariat. Which is very bad 
for the liver. Others are bitten with a mania for 
District work, Ghuznivide coins or Persian poetry ; 
while some, who come of farmers’ stock, find that 
the smell of the Earth after the Rains gets into their 
blood, and calls them to u develop the resources of 
the Province.” These men are enthusiasts. Pine- 
coffin belonged to their class. He knew a great 
many facts bearing on the cost of bullocks and tem- 
porary wells, and opium-scrapers, and what happens 
if you burn too much rubbish on a field, in the hope 
of enriching used-up soil. All the Pinecoffins come 
of a landholding breed, and so the land only took 
back her own again. Unfortunately — most unfor- 
tunately for Pinecoffin — he was a Civilian, as well 
as a farmer. Hafferton watched him, and thought 
about the horse. Hafferton said : — “ See me chase 
that boy till he drops!” I said:— “You can’t get 
your knife into an Assistant Commissioner.” JSTaf~ 
ferton told me that I did not understand the admin- 
istration of the Province. 


228 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Our Government is rather peculiar. It gushes on 
the agricultural and general information side, and 
will supply a moderately respectable man with all 
sorts of “ economic statistics,” if he speaks to it pret- 
tily. For instance, you are interested in gold- wash 
ing in the sands of the Sutlej. You pull the string, 
and find that it wakes up half a dozen Departments, 
and finally communicates, say, with a friend of 
yours in the Telegraph, who once wrote some notes 
on the customs of the gold-washers when he was on 
construction- work in their part of the Empire. He 
may or may not be pleased at being ordered to write 
out everything he knows for your benefit. This 
depends on his temperament. The bigger man you 
are, the more information and the greater trouble 
can you raise. 

Nafferton was not a big man ; but he had the 
reputation of being very “ earnest.” An “ earnest ” 
man can do much with a Government. There was 
an earnest man once who nearly wrecked .... but 
all India knows that story. I am not sure what 
real “ earnestness ” is. A very fair imitation can be 
manufactured by neglecting to dress decently, by 
mooning about in a dreamy, misty sort of way, by 
taking office- work home after staying in office till 
seven, and by receiving crowds of native gentlemen 
on Sundays. That is one sort of “ earnestness.” 

Nafferton cast about for a peg whereon to hang 
bis earnestness, and for a string that would com- 
municate with Pinecoffin. He found both. They 
were Pig, Naffer ton became an earnest inquirer 


FIG. 


22£ 


after Pig. He informed the Government that he 
had a scheme whereby a very large percentage of 
the British Army in India could be fed, at a very 
large saving, on Pig. Then he hinted that Pine- 
coffin might supply him with the “ varied informa- 
tion necessary to the proper inception of the scheme.” 
So the Government wrote on the back of the letter ; — 
“ Instruct Mr. Pinecoffin to furnish Mr. Nafferton 
with any information in his power.” Government 
is very prone to writing things on the backs of letters 
which, later, lead to trouble and confusion. 

Nafferton had not the faintest interest in Pig, but 
he knew that Pinecoffin would flounce into the trap. 
Pinecoffin was delighted at being consulted about 
Pig. The Indian Pig is not exactly an important 
factor in agricultural life ; but Nafferton explained 
to Pinecoffin that there was room for improvement, 
and corresponded direct with that young man. 

You may think that there is not much to be evolved 
from Pig. It all depends how you set to work. 
Pinecoffin being a Civilian and wishing to do things 
thoroughly, began with an essay on the Primitive 
Pig, the Mythology of the Pig, and the Dravidian 
Pig. Naffer ton filed that information — twenty-seven 
foolscap sheets — and wanted to know about the dis- 
tribution of the Pig in the Punjab, and how it stood 
the Plains in the hot weather. From this point on- 
wards, remember that I am giving you only the barest 
outlines of the affair — the guy-ropes, as it were, 
of the web that Nafferton spun round Pine-coffin. 

Pinecoffin made a colored Pig-population map, and 


230 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

collected observations on the comparative longevity 
of Pig (a) in the sub-montane tracts of the Himalayas, 
and (b) in the Rechna Doab. Hafferton filed that, 
and asked what sort of people looked after Pig. This 
started an ethnological excursus on swineherds, and 
drew from Pinecotfin long tables showing the pro- 
portion per thousand of the caste in the Derajat. 
Hafferton filed that bundle, and explained that the 
figures which he wanted referred to the Cis-Sutlej 
states, where he undersood that Pigs were very fine 
and large, and where he proposed to start a Piggery. 
By this time, Government had quite forgotton their 
instructions to Mr. Pinecoffin. They were like the 
gentlemen, in Keats’ poem, who turned well-oiled 
wheels to skin other people. But Pinecoffin was just 
entering into the spirit of the Pig-hunt, as Kafferton 
well knew he would do. He had a fair amount of 
work of his own to clear away ; but he sat up of 
nights reducing Pig to five places of decimals for 
the honor of his Service. He was not going to ap- 
pear ignorant of so easy a subject as Pig. 

Then Government sent him on special duty to 
Kohat, to “ inquire into ” the big, seven-foot, iron- 
shod spades of that District. People had been killing 
each other with those peaceful tools ; and Govern- 
ment wished to know “ whether a modified form of 
agricultural implement could not, tentatively and 
as a temporary measure, be introduced among the 
agricultural population without needlessly or unduly 
exasperating the existing religious sentiments of the 
peasantry.” 


PIG. 


231 


Between those spades and Hafferton’s Pig, Pine- 
coffin was rather heavily burdened. 

Uafferton now began to take up “ (a) The food- 
supply of the indigenous Pig, with a view to the 
improvement of its capacities as a flesh-former, (b) 
The acclimatization of the exotic Pig, maintaining 
its distinctive peculiarities.” Pinecoffin replied ex- 
haustively that the exotic Pig would become merged 
in the indigenous type ; and quoted horse-breeding 
statistics to prove this. The side-issue was debated, 
at great length on Pinecoffin’ s side, till Nafferton 
owned that he had been in the wrong, and moved 
the previous question. When Pinecoffin had quite 
written himself out about flesh-formers, and fibrins, 
and glucose and the nitrogenous constituents of 
maize and lucerne, ISTafferton raised the question of 
expense. By this time Pinecoffin, who had been 
transferred from Kohat, had developed a Pig theory 
of his own, which he stated in thirty-three folio 
pages — all carefully filed by Nafferton. Who 
asked for more. 

These things took ten months, and Pinecoffin’s 
interest in the potential Piggery seemed to die 
down after he had stated his own views. But 
Nafferton bombarded him with letters on “ the Im- 
perial aspect of the scheme, as tending to officialize 
the sale of pork, and thereby calculated to give of- 
fense to the Mahomedan population of Tipper India ” 
He guessed that Pinecoffin would want some broad, 
free-hand work after his niggling, stippling, decimal 
details. Pinecoffin handled the latest development 


232 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


of the case in masterly style, and proved that no 
“ popular ebullition of excitement was to be appre- 
hended.” Hafferton said that there was nothing 
like Civilian insight in matters of this kind, and 
lured him up a bye- path — “the possible profits to 
accrue to the Government from the sale of hog- 
bristles.” There is an extensive literature of hog- 
bristles, and the shoe, brush, and colorman’s trades 
recognize more varieties of bristles than you would 
think possible. After Pinecofiin had wondered a 
little at Nafferton’s rage for information, he sent 
back a monograph, fifty-one pages, on “ Products 
of the Pig.” This led him, under Hafferton’s tender 
handling, straight to the Cawnpore factories, the 
trade in hogskin for saddles — and thence to the 
tanners. Pinecofiin wrote that pomegranate-seed 
was the best cure for hog-skin, and suggested — for 
the past fourteen months had wearied him — that 
Hafferton should “ raise his pigs before he tanned 
them.” 

Hafferton went back to the second section of his 
fifth question. ITow could the exotic Pig be brought 
to give as much pork as it did in the West and yet 
“ assume the essentially hirsute characteristics of its 
oriental congener?” Pinecofiin felt dazed, for he 
had forgotten what he had written sixteen months 
before, and fancied that he was about to reopen the 
entire question. He was too far involved in the 
hideous tangle to retreat, and, in a weak moment, 
he wrote : — “ Consult my first letter.” Which re- 
lated to the Dra vidian Pig. As a matter of fact, 


PIG. 


233 


Pinecoffin had still to reach the acclimatization 
stage ; having gone off on a side-issue on the merg- 
ing of types. 

Then Nafferton really unmasked his batteries! 
He complained to the Government, in stately lan- 
guage, of “ the paucity of help accorded to me in my 
earnest attempts to start a potentially remunerative 
industry, and the flippancy with which my requests 
for information are treated by a gentleman whose 
pseudo scholarly attainments should at least have 
taught him the primary differences between the 
Dra vidian and the Berkshire variety of the genus 
8us. If I am to understand that the letter to which 
he refers me contains his serious views on the ac- 
climatization of a valuable, though possibly un- 
cleanly, animal, I am reluctantly compelled to be- 
lieve,” etc., etc. 

There was a new man at the head of the Depart- 
ment of Castigation. The wretched Pinecoffin was 
told that the Service was made for the Country, 
and not the Country for the Service, and that he 
had better begin to supply information about Pigs. 

Pinecoffin answered insanely that he had written 
everything that could be written about Pig, and 
that some furlough was due to him. 

ISTafferton got a copy of that letter, and sent it, 
with the essay on the Dravidian Pig, to a down- 
country paper which printed both in full. The 
essay was rather high-flown ; but if the Editor had 
seen the stacks of paper, in Pinecoffin’s handwriting, 
on Nafferton’s table, he would not have been so 


234 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

sarcastic about the “nebulous discursiveness and 
blatant self-sufficiency of the modern Competition* 
wallah , and his utter inability to grasp the practical 
issues of a practical question.” Many friends cut 
out these remarks and sent them to Pinecoffin. 

I have already stated that Pinecoffin came of a 
soft stock. This last stroke frightened and shook 
him. He could not understand it ; but he felt that 
he had been, somehow, shamelessly betrayed by 
Hafferton. He realized that he had wrapped him- 
self up in the Pigskin without need, and that he 
could not well set himself right with his Govern- 
ment. All his acquaintances asked after his “ neb- 
ulous discursiveness ” or his “ blatant self-suffi- 
ciency,” and this made him miserable. 

He took a train and went to Nafferton, whom he 
had not seen since the Pig business began. He 
also took the cutting from the paper, and blustered 
feebly and called Nafferton names, and then died 
down to a watery, weak protest of the u I-say it’s- 
too-bad-you-know ” order. 

Hafferton was very sympathetic. 

“ Pm afraid I’ve given you a good deal of trouble, 
haven’t I ? ” said he. 

“ Trouble ! ” whimpered Pinecoffin ; “ I don’t 

mind the trouble so much, though that was bad 
enough ; but what I resent is this showing up in 
print. It will stick to me like a burr all through 
my service. And I did do my best for your in- 
terminable swine. It’s too bad of you, on my soul 
it is!” 


PIG. 


235 


“ I don’t know,” said Nafferton ; “ have you ever 
been stuck with a horse? It isn’t the money I 
mind, though that is bad enough ; but what I resent 
is the chaff that follows, especially from the boy 
who stuck me. But I think we’ll cry quits now.” 

Pinecoffin found nothing to say save bad words ; 
and Nafferton smiled ever so sweetly, and asked 
him to dinner. 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


336 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS, 

It was not in the open fight 
We threw away the sword, 

But in the lonely watching 
In the darkness by the ford. 

The waters lapped, the night-wind blew. 
Full-armed the Fear was born and grew. 

And we were flying ere we knew 
From panic in the night. 

Beoni Bar, 

Some people hold that an English Cavalry reg- 
iment cannot run. This is a mistake. I have seen 
four hundred and thirty-seven sabers flying over the 
face of the country in abject terror, have seen the best 
Regiment that ever drew bridle, wiped off the Army 
List for the space of two hours. If you repeat this 
tale to the White Hussars they will, in all prob- 
ability, treat you severely. They are not proud of 
the incident. 

You may know the White Hussars by their “ side w 
which is greater than that of all the Cavalry Regi 
ments on the roster. If this is not a sufficient mark, 
you may know them by their old brandy. It has 
been sixty years in the Mess and is worth going far 
to taste. Ask for the “ McGaire” old brandy, and 
see that you get it. If the Mess Sergeant thinks 
that you are uneducated, and that the genuine 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. 23 ? 

article will be lost on you, he will treat you accord- 
ingly. He is a good man. But, when you are at 
Mess, you must never talk to your hosts about forced 
marches or long-distance rides. The Mess are very 
sensitive ; and, if they think that you are laughing 
at them, will tell you so. 

As the White Hussars say, it was all the Colonel’s 
fault. He was a new man, and he ought never to 
have taken the Command. He said that the Regi- 
ment was not smart enough. This to the White 
Hussars, who knew they could walk round any 
Horse and through any Guns, and over any Foot on 
the face of the earth I That insult was the first 
cause of offense. 

Then the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse — the 
Drum-Horse of the White Hussars ! Perhaps you 
do not see what an unspeakable crime he had com- 
mitted. I will try to make it clear. The soul of 
the Regiment lives in the Drum-Horse who carries 
the silver kettle-drums. He is nearly always a big 
piebald Waler. That is a point of honor ; and a 
Regiment will spend anything you please on a pie- 
bald. He is beyond the ordinary laws of casting. 
His work is very light, and he only maneuvers at a 
foot-pace. Wherefore, so long as he can step out 
and look handsome, his well-being is assured. He 
knows more about the Regiment than the Adjutant, 
and could not make a mistake if he tried. 

The Drum-Horse of the White Hussars was only 
eighteen years old, and perfectly equal to his duties. 
He had at least six years’ more work in him, and 


238 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


carried himself with all the pomp and dignity of a 
Drum-Major of the Guards. The Eegiment had 
paid Es. 1,200 for him. 

But the Colonel said that he must go, and he was 
cast in due form and replaced by a washy, bay beast 
as ugly as a mule, with a ewe-neck, rat-tail, and cow- 
hocks. The Drummer detested that animal, and the 
best of the Band-horses put back their ears and 
showed the whites of their eyes at the very sight of 
him. They knew him for an upstart and no gentle- 
man. I fancy that the Colonel’s ideas of smartness 
extended to the Band, and that he wanted to make 
it take part in the regular parade movements. A 
Cavalry Band is a sacred thing. It only turns out 
for Commanding Officers’ parades, and the Band Mas- 
ter is one degree more important than the Colonel. 
He is a High Priest and the “ Keel Row ” is his 
holy song. The “ Keel Row ” is the Cavalry Trot ; 
and the man who has never heard that tune rising, 
high and shrill, above the rattle of the Eegiment 
going past the saluting-base, has something yet to 
hear and understand. 

When the Colonel cast the Drum-Horse of the 
White Hussars, there was nearly a mutiny. 

The officers were angry, the Eegiment were furi- 
ous, and the Bandsman swore — like troopers. The 
Drum-Horse was going to be put up to auction — 
public auction — to be bought, perhaps, by a Parsee 
and put into a cart ! It was worse than exposing 
the inner life of the Eegiment to the whole world, 
or selling the Mess Plate to a Jew — a black Jew. 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. 239 

The Colonel was a mean man and a bully. He 
knew what the Regiment thought about his action ; 
and, when the troopers offered to buy the Drum- 
Horse, he said that their offer was mutinous and for- 
bidden by the Regulations. 

But one of the Subalterns — Hogan- Yale, an 
Irishman — bought the Drum-Horse for Rs. 160 at 
the sale ; and the Colonel w^as wroth. Yale pro- 
fessed repentance — he was unnaturally submissive — 
and said that, as he had only made the purchase to 
save the horse from possible ill-treatment and star- 
vation, he would now shoot him and end the busi- 
ness. This appeared to soothe the Colonel, for he 
wanted the Drum-Horse disposed of. He felt that 
he had made a mistake, and could not of course 
acknowledge it. Meantime, the presence of the 
Drum-horse was an annoyance to him. 

Yale took to himself a glass of the old 
brandy, three cheroots, and his friend, Martyn ; and 
they all left the Mess together. Yale and Martyn, 
conferred for two hours in Yale’s quarters ; but only 
the bull-terrier who keeps watch over Yale’s boot- 
trees knows what they said. A horse, hooded and 
sheeted to his ears, left Yale’s stables and was taken 
very unwillingly, into the Civil Lines. Yale’s groom 
went with him. Two men broke into the Regi- 
mental theater and took several paint-pots and some 
large scenery brushes. Then night fell over the 
Cantonments, and there was a noise as of a horse 
kicking his loose-box to pieces in Yale’s stables, 
Yale had a big, old, white Waler trap-horse. 


240 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILI^. 

The next day was a Thursday, and the men, hear* 
ing that Yale was going to shoot the Drum-Horse 
in the evening, determined to give the beast a 
regular regimental funeral — a finer one than they 
would have given the Colonel had he died just then. 
They got a bullock-cart and some sacking, and 
mounds and mounds of roses, and the body, under 
sacking, was carried out to the plane where the 
anthrax cases were cremated ; two-thirds of the 
Begiment followed. There was no Band, but they 
all sang “ The Place where the old Horse died ” as 
something respectful and appropriate to the occa- 
sion. When the corpse was dumped into the grave 
and the men began throwing down armfuls of roses 
to cover it, the Farrier-Sergeant ripped out an oath 
and said aloud : — “ Why, it ain’t the Drum-Horse 
any more than it’s me ! ” The Troop-Sergeant- 
Majors asked him whether he had left his head in 
the Canteen. The Farrier-Sergeant said that he 
knew the Drum-Horse’s feet as well as he knew his 
own ; but he was silenced when he saw the regi- 
mental number burnt in on the poor stiff, upturned 
near-fore. 

Thus was the Drum-Horse of the White Hussars 
buried ; the Farrier-Sergeant grumbling. The sack- 
ing that covered the corpse was smeared in places 
with black paint ; and the Farrier-Sergeant drew 
attention to this fact. But the Troop-Sergeant- 
Major of E Troop kicked him severely on the shin, 
and told him that he was undoubtedly drunk. 

On the Monday following the burial, the Colonel 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. 241 


sought revenge on the White Hussars. Unfortu- 
nately, being at that time temporarily in Command 
of the Station, he ordered a Brigade field-day. He 
said that he wished to make the regiment “ sweat 
for their damned insolence,” and he carried out his 
notion thoroughly. That Monday was one of the 
hardest days in the memory of the White Hussars. 
They were thrown against a skeleton-enemy, and 
pushed forward, and withdrawn, and dismounted, 
and “ scientifically handled ” in every possible fashion 
over dusty country, till they sweated profusely. 
Their only amusement came late in the day when 
they fell upon the battery of Horse Artillery and 
chased it for two miles. This was a personal ques- 
tion, and most of the troopers had money on the 
event ; the Gunners saying openly that they had the 
legs of the White Hussars. They were wrong. A 
march-past concluded the campaign, and when the 
Regiment got back to their Lines, the men were 
coated with dirt from spur to chin-strap. 

The white Hussars have one great and peculiar 
privilege. They won it at Fontenoy, I think. 

Many Regiments possess special rights such as 
wearing collars with undress uniform, or a bow of 
ribbon between the shoulders, or red and white 
roses in their helmets on certain days of the year. 
Some rights are connected with regimental saints, 
and some with regimental successes. All are valued 
highly; but none so highly as the right of the 
White Hussars to have the Band playing when 
their horses are being watered in the Lines. Only 
16 


242 PLAIN TALES FROM THl HILLS. 

one tune is played, and that tune never varies. I 
don’t know its real name, but the White Hussars 
call it : — “ Take me to London again.” It sounds 
very pretty. The Regiment would sooner be struck 
off the roster than forego their distinction. 

After the “ dismiss ” was sounded, the officers 
rode off home to prepare for stables ; and the men 
filed into the lines, riding easy. That is to say, 
they opened their tight buttons, shifted their hel- 
mets, and began to joke or to swear as the humor 
took them ; the more careful slipping off and eas- 
ing girths and curbs. A good trooper values his 
mount exactly as much as he values himself, and 
believes, or should believe, that the two together 
are irresistible where women or men, girls or guns, 
are concerned. 

Then the Orderly-Officer gave the order: — 
54 Water horses,” and the Regiment loafed off to 
the squadron-troughs which were in rear of the 
stables and between these and the barracks. There 
were four huge troughs, one for each squadron, ar- 
ranged en echelon , so that the whole Regiment could 
water in ten minutes if it liked. But it lingered 
for seventeen, as a rule, while the Band played. 

The band struck up as the squadrons filed off the 
troughs, and the men slipped their feet out of the 
stirrups and chaffed each other. The sun was just 
setting in a big, hot bed of red cloud, and the road 
to the Civil Lines seemed to run straight into the 
sun’s eye. There was a little dot on the road. It 
grew and grew till it showed as a horse, with a sort 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. 243 

of gridiron thing on his back. The red cloud glared 
through the bars of the gridiron. Some of the 
troopers shaded their eyes with their hands and 
>said : — “ What the mischief ’as that there ’orse got 
on ’im 1 ” 

In another minute they heard a neigh that every 
soul — horse and man — in the Regiment knew, and 
saw, heading straight towards the Band, the dead 
Drum-Horse of the White Hussars ! 

On his withers banged and bumped the kettle- 
drums draped in crape, and on his back, very stiff 
and soldierly sat a bareheaded skeleton. 

The band stopped playing, and for a moment, 
there was a hush. 

Then some one in E troop — men said it was the 
Troop- Sergeant-Major — swung his horse round and 
yelled. Ho one can account exactly for what hap- 
pened afterwards ; but it seems that, at least, one 
man in each troop set an example of panics and the 
rest followed like sheep. The horses that had 
barely put their muzzles into the troughs reared and 
capered; but, as soon as the Band broke, which 
it did when the ghost of the Drum-Horse was about 
a furlong distant, all hooves followed suit, and the 
clatter of the stampede — quite different from the 
orderly throb and roar of a movement on parade, 
or the rough horseplay of watering in camp — made 
them only more terrified. They felt that the men 
on their backs were afraid of something. When 
horses once know that, all is over except the 
butchery. 


244 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Troop after troop turned from the troughs and 
ran — anywhere, and everywhere— like spilt quick* 
silver. It was a most extraordinary spectacle, for 
men and horses were in all stages of easiness, and 
the carbine-buckets flopping against their sides urged 
the horses on. Men were shouting and cursing, and 
trying to pull clear of the Band which was being 
chased by the Drum-Horse whose rider had fallen 
forward and seemed to be spurring for a wager. 

The Colonel had gone over to the Mess for a 
drink. Most of the Officers were with him, and the 
Subaltern of the Day was preparing to go down to 
the lines, and receive the watering reports from 
the Troop-Sergeant-Majors. When “ Take me to 
London again” stopped after twenty bars every 
one in the Mess said : — “ What on earth has hap- 
pened ? ” A minute later, they heard unmilitary 
noises, and saw, far across the plain, the White 
Hussars scattered, and broken, and flying. 

The Colonel was speechless with rage, for he 
thought that the Regiment had risen against him 
or was unanimously drunk. The Band, a disorgan- 
ized mob, tore past, and at its heels labored the 
Drum-Horse — the dead and buried Drum- Horse — • 
with the jolting, clattering skeleton. Hogan-Yale 
whispered softly to Marty n : — “ ISTo wire will stand 
that treatment,” and the Band, which had doubled 
like a hare, came back again. But the rest of the 
Regiment was gone, was rioting all over the Prov- 
ince, for the dusk had shut in and each man was 
howling to his neighbor that the Drum-Horse was 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. M5 

on his flank. Troop-Horses are far too tenderly 
treated as a rule. They can, on emergencies, do a 
great deal, even with seventeen stone on their 
backs. As the troopers found out. 

How long this panic lasted I cannot say. I be- 
lieve that when the moon rose the men saw they 
had nothing to fear, and, by twos and threes and 
half-troops, crept back into Cantonments very much 
ashamed of themselves. Meantime, the Drum- 
Horse, disgusted at his treatment by old friends, 
pulled up, wheeled round, and trotted up to the 
Mess veranda-steps for bread. Ho one liked to 
run; but no one cared to go forward till the 
Colonel made a movement and laid hold of the 
skeleton’s foot. The Band had halted some dis- 
tance away, and now came back slowly. The 
Colonel called it, individually and collectively, every 
evil name that occurred to him at the time ; for he 
had set his hand on the bosom of the Drum-Horse 
and found flesh and blood. Then he beat the ket- 
tle-drums with his clenched fist, and discovered that 
they were but made of silvered paper and bamboo. 
Hext, still swearing, he tried to drag the skeleton 
out of the saddle, but found that it had been wired 
into the cantle. The sight of the Colonel, with his 
arms round the skeleton’s pelvis and his knee in the 
old Drum-Horse’s stomach, was striking. Hot to 
say amusing. He worried the thing off in a minute 
or two, and threw it down on the ground, saying to 
the Band : — “ Here, you curs, that’s what you’re 
afraid of.” The skeleton did not look pretty in the 


246 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


twilight. The Band-Sergeant seemed to recognize 
it, for he began to chuckle and choke. “ Shall I 
take it away, sir 2 ” said the Band-Sergeant. 
“ Yes,” said the Colonel, “ Take it to Hell, and ride 
there yourselves ! ” 

The Band-Sergeant saluted, hoisted the skeleton 
across his saddle-bow, and led off to the stables. 
Then the Colonel began to make inquiries for the 
rest of the Regiment, and the language he used was 
wonderful. He would disband the Regiment — he 
would court-martial every soul in it — he would not 
command such a set of rabble, and so on, and so on. 
As the men dropped in, his language grew wilder, 
until at last it exceeded the utmost limits of free 
speech allowed even to a Colonel of Horse. 

Martyn took Hogan-Yale aside and suggested 
compulsory retirement from the service as a necessity 
when all was discovered. Martyn was the weaker 
man of the two, Hogan-Yale put up his eyebrows 
and remarked, firstly, that he was the son of a Lord, 
and secondly, that he was as innocent as the babe 
unborn of the theatrical resurrection of the Drum- 
Horse. 

“ My instructions,” said Yale, with a singularly 
sweet smile, “were that the Drum-Horse should 
be sent back as impressively as possible. I 
ask you, am I responsible if a mule-headed friend 
sends him back in such a manner as to disturb 
the peace of mind of a regiment of Her Maiestv’s 
Cavalry 2 ” 

Martyn said : — “ You are a great man, and will 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. 247 

in time become a General ; but I’d give my chance 
of a troop to be safe out of this affair.” 

Providence saved Martyn and Hogan-Yale. The 
Second-in-Command led the Colonel away to the 
little curtained alcove wherein the Subalterns of 
the White Hussars were accustomed to play poker 
of nights ; and there, after many oaths on the Col- 
onel’s part, they talked together in low tones. I 
fancy that the Second-in-Command must have rep- 
resented the scare as the work of some trooper 
whom it would be hopeless to detect ; and I know 
that he dwelt upon the sin and the shame of making 
a public laughing-stock of the scare. 

“ They will call us,” said the Second-in-Command, 
who had really a fine imagination, “ they will call 
us the ‘ Fly-by-Hights ; ’ they will call us the ‘ Ghost 
Hunters ’ ; they will nickname us from one end of 
the Army list to the other. All the explanations in 
the world won’t make outsiders understand that the 
officers were away when the panic began. For the 
honor of the Regiment and for your own sake keep 
this thing quiet.” 

The Colonel was so exhausted with anger that 
soothing him down was not so difficult as might be 
imagined. He was made to see, gently and by de- 
grees, that it was obviously impossible to court- 
martial the whole Regiment, and equally impossible 
to proceed against any subaltern who, in his belief, 
had any concern in the hoax. 

“ But the beast’s alive ! He’s never been shot at 
all ! ” shouted the Colonel. “ It’s flat, flagrant dis- 


248 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


obedience! I’ve known a man broke for less, d — d 
side less. They’re mocking me, I tell you Mutman ! 
They’re mocking me ! ” 

Once more, the Second-in-Command set himself 
to soothe the Colonel, and wrestled with him for 
half-an-hour. At the end of that time, the Begimen- 
tal Sergeant-Major reported himself. The situation 
was rather novel to him ; but he was not a man to be 
put out by circumstances. He saluted and said : 
“ Begiment all come back, Sir.” Then, to propitiate 
the Colonel : — u An’ none of the horses any the 
worse, Sir.” 

The Colonel only snorted and answered : — 
“ You’d better tuck the men into their cots, then, 
and see that they don’t wake up and cry in the 
night.” The Sergeant withdrew. 

His little stroke of humor pleased the Colonel, and, 
further, he felt slightly ashamed of the language 
he had been using. The Second-in-Command worried 
him again, and the two sat talking far into the night. 

Hext day but one, there was a commanding 
Officer’s parade, and the Colonel harangued the 
White Hussars vigorously. The pith of his speech 
was that, since the Drum-Horse in his old age had 
proved himself capable of cutting up the whole Begi- 
ment, he should return to his post of pride at the 
head of the band, but the Begiment were a set of 
ruffians with bad consciences. 

The White Hussars shouted, and threw every* 
thing movable about them into the air, and when 
the parade was over, they cheered the Colonel till 


THE ROUT OF THE WHITE HUSSARS. 249 

they couldn’t speak. No cheers were put up tor 
Lieutenant Hogan-Yale who smiled very sweetly in 
the background. 

Said the Second-in-Command to the Colonel, un- 
officially : — 

“ These little things ensure popularity, and do not 
the least affect discipline.” 

“ But I went back on my word,” said the Colonel. 

“ Never mind,” said the Second-in-Command. 
“ The White Hussars will follow you anywhere from 
to-day. Regiments are just like women. They will 
do anything for trinketry.” 

A week later, Hogan-Yale received an extraor- 
dinary letter from some one who signed himself 
“ Secretary, Chw'ity and Zeal , 3709, E. C. ,” and 
asked for “ the return of our skeleton which we have 
reason to believe is in your possession.” 

“ Who the deuce is this lunatic who trades in 
bones? ” said Hogan-Yale. 

“ Beg your pardon, Sir,” said the Band Sergeant, 
“ but the skeleton is with me, and I’ll return it if 
you’ll pay the carriage into the Civil Lines. There’s 
a coffin with it, Sir.” 

Hogan- Yale smiled and handed two rupees to the 
Band-Sergeant, saying: — “Write the date on the 
skull, will you ? ” 

If you doubt this story, and know where to go, 
vou can see the date on the skeleton. But don’t 
mention the matter to the White Hussars. 

I happen to know something about it, because I 
prepared the Drum-Horse for his resurrection. He 
did not take kindly to the skeleton at all. 


250 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE CASE 

In the daytime, when she moved about me, 

In the night, when she was sleeping at my side, — 

I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence, 

Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her — 
Would God that she or I had died ! 

Confessions. 

There was a man called Bronekhorst — a three- 
cornered, middle-aged man in the Arm} 7 — gray as a 
badger, and, some people said, with a touch of coun- 
try blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved. 
Mrs. Bronekhorst was not exactly young, though 
fifteen years younger than her husband. She was a 
large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy eyelids, over 
weak eyes, and hair that turned red or yellow as the 
lights fell on it. 

Bronekhorst was not nice in any way. He had 
no respect for the pretty public and private lies that 
make life a little less nasty than it is. His manner 
towards his wife was coarse. There are many 
things — including actual assault with the clenched 
fist — that a wife will endure ; but seldom a wife can 
bear — as Mrs. Bronekhorst bore — with a long course 
of brutal, hard chaff, making light of her weak- 
nesses, her headaches, her small fits of gayety, her 
dresses, her queer kittle attempts to make herself 


THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE CASE. 251 

attractive to her husband when she knows that she 
is not what she has been, and — worst of all — the love 
that she spends on her children. That particular sort 
of heavy-handed jest was specially dear to Bronck- 
horst. I suppose that he had first slipped into it, 
meaning no harm, in the honeymoon, when folk find 
their ordinary stock of endearments run short, and 
so go to the other extreme to express their feelings. 
A similar impulse makes a man say : — “ Hutt, you 
old beast ! ” when a favorite horse nuzzles his coat’ 
front. Unluckily, when the reaction of marriage 
sets in, the form of speech remains, and, the tender- 
ness having died out, hurts the wife more than she 
cares to say. But Mrs. Bronckhorst was devoted to 
her “ Teddy ” as she called him. Perhaps that was 
why he objected to her. Perhaps — this is only a 
theory to account for his infamous behavior later on 
— he gave way to the queer, savage feeling that 
sometimes takes by the throat a husband twenty 
years’ married, when he sees, across the 'table, the 
same face of his wedded wife, and knows that, as he 
has sat facing it, so must he continue to sit until day 
of its death or his own. Most men and all women 
know the spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as 
a rule, must be a “ throw-back ” to times when men 
and women were rather worse than they are now, 
and is too unpleasant to be discussed. 

Dinner at the Bronckhorsts’ was an infliction few 
men cared to undergo. Bronckhorst took a pleasure 
in saying things that made his wife wince. When 
their little boy came in at dessert, Bronckhorst used 


252 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILI^. 

to give him half a glass of wine, and naturally 
enough, the poor little mite got first riotous, next 
miserable, and was removed screaming. Bronck- 
horst asked if that was the way Teddy usually be- 
haved, and whether Mrs. Bronckhorst could not 
spare some of her time to teach the “ little beggar 
decency.” Mrs. Bronckhorst, who loved the boy 
more than her own life, tried not to cry — her spirit 
seemed to have been broken by her marriage. 
Lastly, Bronckhorst used to say : — “ There ! That’ll 
do, that’ll do. For God’s sake try to behave like a 
rational woman. Go into the drawing-room.” Mrs. 
Bronckhorst would go, trying to carry it all off with 
a smile ; and the guest of the evening would feel 
angry and uncomfortable. 

After three years of this cheerful life — for Mrs. 
Bronckhorst had no woman-friends to talk to — the 
Station was startled by the news that Bronckhorst 
had instituted proceedings on the criminal count , ' 
against a man called Biel, who certainly had been 
rather attentive to Mrs. Bronckhorst whenever she 
had appeared in public. The utter want of reserve 
with which Bronckhorst treated his own dishonor 
helped us to know that the evidence against Biel 
would be entirely circumstantial and native. There 
were no letters; but Bronckhorst said openly that 
he would rack Heaven and Earth until he saw Biel 
superintending the manufacture of carpets in the 
Central Jail. Mrs. Bronckhorst kept entirely to her 
house, and let charitable folks say what they 
pleased. Opinions were divided. Some two-thirds 


THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE CASE. 


253 


of the station jumped at once to the conclusion that 
Biel was guilty ; but a dozen men who knew and 
liked him held by him. Biel was furious and sur- 
prised. He denied the whole thing, and vowed that 
he would thrash Bronckhorst within an inch of his 
life. JSTo jury, we knew, could convict a man on the 
criminal count on native evidence in a land where 
you can buy a murder-charge, including the corpse, 
all complete for fifty-four rupees ; but Biel did not 
care to scrape through by the benefit of a doubt. 
He wanted the whole thing cleared : but as he said 
one night : — “ He can prove anything with servants’ 
evidence, and I’ve only my bare word.” This was 
about a month before the case came on ; and beyond 
agreeing with Biel, we could do little. All that we 
could be sure of was that the native evidence would 
be bad enough to blast Biel’s character for the rest 
of his service ; for when a native begins perjury he 
perjures himself thoroughly. He does not boggle 
over details. 

Some genius at the end of the table whereat the 
affair was being talked over, said : — “ Look here ! I 
don’t believe lawyers are any good. Get a man to 
wire to Strickland, and beg him to come down and 
pull us through.” 

Strickland was about a hundred and eighty miles 
up the line. He had not long been married to Miss 
Youghal, but he scented in the telegram a chance 
of return to the old detective work that his son- 
lusted after, and next night he came in and heard 
our story. He finished his pipe and said oracularly : 


254 : 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


— “We must get at the evidence. Oorya bearer, 
Mussulman kbit and methraniayah , I suppose, are 
the pillars of the charge. I am on in this piece ; 
but I’m afraid I’m getting rusty in my talk.” 

He rose and went into Biel’s bedroom where his 
trunk had been put, and shut the door. An hour 
later, we heard him say : — “ I hadn’t the heart to 
part with my old makeups when I married. Will 
this do ? ” There was a lothely faquir salaaming in 
the doorway. 

“ How lend me fifty rupees,” said Strickland, 
“and give me your Words of Honor that you won’t 
tell my Wife.” 

He got all that he asked for, and left the house 
while the table drank his health. What he did only 
he himself knows. A faquir hung about Bronck- 
horst’s compound for twelve days. Then a mehter 
appeared, and when Biel heard of him , he said that 
Strickland was an angel full-fledged. Whether the 
mehter made love to Janki, Mrs. Bronckhorst’s ayah , 
is a question which concerns Strickland exclusively. 

He came back at the end of three weeks, and said 
quietly : — “You spoke the truth, Biel. The whole 
business is put up from beginning to end. Jove ! 
It almost astonishes me ! That Bronckhorst-beast 
isn’t fit to live.” 

There was uproar and shouting, and Biel said: — 
“ How are you going to prove it? You can’t say 
that you’ve been trespassing on Bronckhorst’s com- 
pound in disguise ! ” 

“Ho,” said Strickland. “Tell your lawyer-fool, 


THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE CASE. 255 

whoever he is, to get up something strong about 
* inherent improbabilities ’ and ‘ discrepancies of 
evidence.’ He won’t have to speak, but it will 
make him happy. Fm going to run this business.” 

Biel held his tongue, and the other men waited 
to see what would happen. They trusted Strick- 
land as men trust quiet men. When the case came 
off the Court was crowded. Strickland hung about 
in the veranda of the Court, till he met the Mo- 
hammedan hhitmatgar. Then he murmured a far 
quiFs blessing in his ear, and asked him how his 
second wife did. The man spun round, and, as he 
looked into the eyes of “ Estreeken Sahib f his jaw 
dropped. You must remember that before Strick- 
land was married, he was, as I have told you 
already, a power among natives. Strickland whis- 
pered a rather coarse vernacular proverb to the 
effect that he was abreast of all that was going on, 
and went into the Court armed with a gut trainer’s- 
whip. 

The Mohammedan was the first witness and 
Strickland beamed upon him from the back of the 
Court. The man moistened his lips with his tongue 
and, in his abject fear of “ Estreeken Sahib ” the 
faquir , went back on every detail of his evidence- 
said he was a poor man and God was his witness 
that he had forgotten everything that Bronekhorst 
Sahib had told him to say. Between his terror of 
Strickland, the Judge, and Bronekhorst he collapsed, 
weeping. 

Then began the panic among the witnesses. 


256 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

Janki, the ayah , leering chastely behind her veil, 
turned gray, and the bearer left the Court. He 
said that his Mamma was dying and that it was not 
wholesome for any man to lie unthriftily in the 
presence of u Estreeken Sahib.” 

Biel said politely to Bronckhorst : — “ Your wit- 
nesses don’t seem to work. Haven’t you any forged 
letters to produce ? ” But Bronckhorst was sway- 
ing to and fro in his chair, and there was a dead 
pause after Biel had been called to order. 

Bronckhorst’s Counsel saw the look on his client’s 
face, and without more ado, pitched his papers on 
the little green baize table, and mumbled something 
about having been misinformed. The whole Court 
applauded wildly, like soldiers at a theater, and the 
Judge began to say what he thought. 

Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped 
a gut trainer’s- whip in the veranda. Ten minutes 
later, Beil was cutting Bronckhorst into ribbons 
behind the old Court cells, quietly and without 
scandal. What was left of Bronckhorst was sent 
home in a carriage ; and his wife wept over it and 
nursed it into a man again. 

Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the 
counter-charge against Bronckhorst of fabricating 
false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, with her faint 
watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, 
but it wasn’t her Teddy’s fault altogether. She 
would wait till her Teddy came back to her. Per- 
haps he had grown tired of her, or she had tried 


THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE CASE. 257 


his patience, and perhaps we wouldn’t cut her any 
more, and perhaps the mothers would let their chil- 
dren play with “ little Teddy ” again. He was 
so lonely. Then the Station invited Mrs. Bronck- 
horst everywhere, until Brockhorst was fit to appear 
in public, when he went Home and took his wife 
with him. According to the latest advices, her 
Teddy did “ come back to her,” and they are moder- 
ately happy. Though, of course, he can never for- 
give her the thrashing that she was the indirect 
means of getting for him. 

What Biel wants to know is : — “ Why didn’t I 
press home the charge against the Bronckhorst- 
brute, and have him run in ? ” 

What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is : — How 
did my husband bring such a lovely, lovely Waler 
from your Station ? I know all his money-affairs ; 
and I’m certain he didn’t buy it.” 

What I want to know is : — “ How do women like 
Mrs. Bronckhorst come to marry men like Bronck- 
horst ? ” 

And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of 
the three. 

*7 


258 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


VENUS ANNO DOMINI. 

And the years went on as the years must do ; 

But our great Diana was always new — 

Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair, 

With azure eyes and with aureate hair ; 

And all the folk, as they came or went, 

Offered her praise to her heart’s content. 

Diana of Ephesus . 

She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in 
the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, between Vis- 
conti’s Ceres and the God of the Nile. She was 
purely an Indian deity — an Anglo-Indian deity, that 
is to say — and we called her the Venus Annodomini, 
to distinguish her from other Annodominis of the 
same everlasting order. There was a legend among 
the Hills that she had once been young ; but no 
living man was prepared to come forward and say 
boldly that the legend was true. Men rode up to 
Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their 
name and did their life’s work, and returned again 
to find the Venus Annodomini exactly as they had 
left her. She was as immutable as the Hills. But 
not quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen could 
do in the way of riding, walking, dancing, picnick- 
ing and over-exertion generally, the Venus Anno- 
domini did, and showed no sign of fatigue or trace 


VENUS ANNODOMINI. 


259 


of weariness. Besides perpetual youth, she had 
discovered, men said, the secret of perpetual health ; 
and her fame spread about the land. From a mere 
woman, she grew to be an Institution, insomuch 
that no young man could be said to be properly 
formed who had not, at some time or another, 
worshiped at the shrine of the Yenus Annodomini. 
There was no one like her, though there were many 
imitations. Six years in her eyes were no more 
than six months to ordinary women ; and ten made 
less visible impression on her than does a week’s 
fever on an ordinary woman. Every one adored 
her, and in return she was pleasant and courteous 
to nearly every one. Youth had been a habit of hers 
for so long, that she could not part with it— never 
realized, in fact, the necessity of parting with it— and 
took for her more chosen associates young people. . 

Among the worshipers of the Y enus Annodomini 
was young Gayerson. “Yery Young” Gayerson, 
he was called to distinguish him from his father 
« Youno* ” Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian, who affected 
the customs — as he had the heart — of youth. “ Yery 
Young” Gayerson was not content to worship 
placidly and for form’s sake, as the other young men 
did, or to accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from 
the Yenus Annodomini in a properly humble and 
thankful spirit. He was exacting, and, therefore, 
the Yenus Annodomini repressed him. He worried 
himself nearly sick in a futile sort of way over her ; 
and his devotion and earnestness made him appear 
either shy or boisterous or rude, as his mood might 


260 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

varjq by the side of the older men who, with him, 
bowed before the Y enus Annodomini. She was sorry 
for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and- 
tvventy years ago, had professed a boundless devotion 
for her, and for whom in return she had felt some- 
thing more than a week’s weakness. But that lad 
had fallen away and married another woman less 
than a year after he had worshiped her ; and the 
Yenus Annodomini had almost — not quite — for- 
gotten his name. “Yery Young” Gayerson had 
the same big blue eyes and the same way of pouting 
his undcrlip when he was excited or troubled. But 
the Yenus Annodomini checked him sternly none 
the less. Too much zeal was a thing that she did 
not approve of ; preferring instead, a tempered and 
sober tenderness. 

“Yery Young” Gayerson was miserable, and 
took no trouble to conceal his wretchedness. He 
was in the Army — a Line regiment I think, but am 
not certain — and, since his face was a looking-glass 
and his forehead an open book, by reason of his in- 
nocence, his brothers in arms made his life a burden 
to him and embittered his naturally sweet disposition* 
Ho one except “Yery Young” Gayerson, and he 
never told his views, knew how old “ Yery Young” 
Gayerson believed the Yenus Annodomini to be. 
Perhaps he thought her five-and-twenty, or perhaps 
she told him that she was this age. “ Yery Young ” 
Gayerson would have forded the Gugger in flood to 
carry her lightest word, and had implicit faith in 
her. Every one liked him, and every one was sorry 


VENUS ANNODOMINI. 261 

when they saw him so bound a slave of the Venus 
Annodomini. Every one, too, admitted that it was 
not her fault; for the Venus Annodomini differed 
from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver in this par- 
ticular — she never moved a finger to attract any one ; 
but, like Ninon de l’Enclos, all men were attracted 
to her. One could admire and respect Mrs. Hauksbee, 
despise and avoid Mrs. Reiver, but one was forced 
to adore the Venus Annodomini. 

“Very Young” Gayerson’s papa held a Division 
or a Collectorate or something administrative in a 
particularly unpleasant part of Bengal — full of Babus 
who edited newspapers proving that “Young” 
Gayerson was a “ Nero ” and a “ Scylla ” and a 
“ Chary bdis ” ; and, in addition to the Babus, 
there was a good deal of dysentery and cholera 
abroad for nine months of the year. “ Young ” 
Gayerson — he was about five and forty — rather 
liked Babus, they amused him, but he objected to 
dysentery, and when he could get away, went to 
Darjilling for the most part. This particular season 
he fancied that he would come up to Simla, and see 
his boy. The boy was not altogether pleased. He 
told the Venus Annodomini that his father was 
coming up, and she flushed a little and said that she 
should be delighted to make his acquaintance. Then 
she looked long and thoughtfully at “ Very Young” 
Gayerson, because she was very, very sorry for him, 
and he was a very, very big idiot. 

“ My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr. 
Gayerson,” she said. 


262 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“ Your what ? ” said he. 

“ Daughter,” said the Yenus Annodomini. “ She’s 
been out for a year at Home already, and I want 
her to see a little of Inda. She is nineteen and a 
very sensible, nice girl I believe.” 

“ Yery Young ” Gayerson, who was a short twenty- 
two years old, nearly fell out of his chair with 
astonishment ; for he had persisted in believing, 
against all belief, in the youth of the Yenus An- 
nodomini. She, with her back to the curtained 
window, watched the effect of her sentences and 
smiled. 

“ Yery Young” Gayerson’s papa came up twelve 
days later, and had not been in Simla four and twenty 
hours, before two men, old acquaintances of his, had 
told him how “ Yery Young ” Gayerson had been 
conducting himself. 

“ Young ” Gaj 7 erson laughed a good deal, and 
inquired who the Yenus Annodomini might be. 
Which proves that he had been living in Bengal 
where nobody knows anything except the rate of 
Exchange. Then he said “ boys will be boys,” and 
spoke to his son about the matter. “ Yery Young” 
Gayerson said that he felt wretched and unhappy ; 
and “Young” Gayerson said that he repented of 
having helped to bring a fool into the world. He 
suggested that his son had better cut his leave short 
and go down to his duties. This led to an unfilial 
answer, and relations were strained, until “Young” 
Gayerson demanded that they should call on the 
Yenus Annodomini. “Yery Young” Gayerson 


VENUS ANNODOMINI. 


263 


went with his papa, feeling, somehow, uncomfortable 
and small. 

The Venus Annodomini received them graciously 
and “Young” Gayerson said: — “ By Jove! It’s 
Kitty!” “Very Young” Gayerson would have 
listened for an explanation, if his time had not been 
taken up with trying to talk to a large, handsome, 
quiet, well-dressed girl — introduced to him by the 
Venus Annodomini as her daughter. She was far 
older in manners, style and repose than “Very 
Young” Gayerson; and, as he realized this thing, 
he felt sick. 

Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini say- 
ing : — “ Do you know that your son is one of my 
most devoted admirers ?” 

“ I don’t wonder,” said “ Young ” Gayerson. Here 
he raised his voice : — “ He follows his father’s foot- 
steps. Didn’t I worship the ground you trod on, 
ever so long ago, Kitty — and you haven’t changed 
since then. How strange it all seems ! ” 

“ Very Young ” Gayerson said nothing. His con- 
versation with the daughter of the V enus Annodo- 
mini was, through the rest of the call, fragmentary 
and disjointed. 

“ At five to-morrow then,” said the V enus An- 
nodomini. “ And mind you are punctual.” 

“ At five punctually,” said “Young” Gayerson. 
« You can lend your old father a horse I dare say, 
youngster, can’t you ? I’m going for a ride to- 
morrow afternoon.” 


264 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“ Certainly,” said “ Very Young ” Gayerson. “1 
am going down to-morrow morning. My ponies 
are at your service, Sir.” 

The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the 
half-light of the room, and her big gray eyes filled 
with moisture. She rose and shook hands with 
him. 

“ Good-by, Tom,” whispered the Venus ^nno 
domini 


THE BIS AHA OF POOREE. 


265 


THE BISAEA OF POOEEE. 

Little Blind Fish, thou art marvelous wise, 
little Blind Fish, who put out thy eyes ? 

Open thine ears while I whisper my wish — 

Bring me a lover, thou little Blind Fish. 

The Charm of the Bisara, 

Some natives say that it came from the other side 
ot Kulu, where the eleven-inch Temple Sapphire is. 
Others that it was made at the Devil-Shrine of Ao- 
Chung in Thibet, was stolen by a Kafir, from him 
by a Gurkha, from him again by a Lahouli, from 
him by a khitmatgar , and by this latter sold to an 
Englishman, so all its virtue was lost : because, to 
work properly, the Bisara of Pooree must be stolen 
— with bloodshed if possible, but, at any rate, stolen. 

These stories of the coming into India are all 
false. It was made at Pooree ages since — the man- 
ner of its making would fill a small book — was 
stolen by one of the Temple dancing-girls there, for 
her own purposes, and then passed on from hand to 
hand, steadily northward, till it reached Hanld. : 
always bearing the same name — the Bisara of 
Pooree. In shape it is a tiny, square box of silver, 
studded outside with eight small balas-rubies. In- 
side the box, which opens with a spring, is a little 
eyeless fish, carved from some sort of dark, shiny 


266 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

nut and wrapped in a shred of faded gold-cloth. 
That is the Bisara of Pooree, and it were better for 
a man to take a king cobra in his hand than to 
touch the Bisara of Pooree. 

All kinds of magic are out of date, and done away 
with except in India, where nothing changes in spite 
of the shiny, toy-scum stuff that people call “ civiliza- 
tion.” Any man who knows about the Bisara of 
Pooree will tell you what its powers are — always 
supposing that it has been honestly stolen. It is 
the only regularly working, trustworthy love-charm 
in the country, with one exception. 

[The other charm is in the hands of a trooper of 
the Nizam’s Horse, at a place called Tuprani, due 
north of Hyderabad.] This can be depended upon 
for a fact. Some one else may explain it. 

If the Bisara be not stolen, but given or bought 
or found, it turns against its owner in three years, 
and leads to ruin or death. This is another fact 
which you may explain when you have time. Mean- 
while* you can laugh at it. At present, the Bisara 
is safe on an elclca- pony’s neck, inside the blue bead- 
necklace that keeps off the Evil-eye. If the ekka- 
driver ever finds it, and wears it, or gives it to his 
wife, I am sorry for him. 

A very dirty hill-cooly woman, with goiter, 
owned it at Theog in 1884. It came into Simla 
from the north before Churton’s Ichitmatgar bought 
it, and sold it, for three times its silver-value, to 
Churton, who collected curiosities. The servant 
knew no more what he had bought than the mastery 


THE BISARA OF POOREE. 


267 


bat a man looking over Churton’s collection of curi- 
osities — Churton was an Assistant Commissioner 
by the way — saw and held his tongue. He was an 
Englishman ; but knew how to believe. Which 
shows that he was different from most Englishmen. 
He knew that it was dangerous to have any share 
in the little box when working or dormant ; for un- 
sought Love is a terrible gift. 

Pack — “ Grubby ” Pack, as we used to call him 
— was, in every way, a nasty little man who must 
have crawled into the Army by mistake. He was 
three inches taller than his sword, but not half so 
strong. And the sword was a fifty -shilling, tailor- 
made one. Nobody liked him, and, I suppose, it 
was his wizenedness and worthlessness that made 
him fall so hopelessly in love with Miss Hollis, who 
was good and sweet, and five foot seven in her 
tennis shoes. He was not content with falling in 
love quietly, but brought all the strength of his 
miserable little nature into the business. If he had 
not been so objectionable, one might have pitied 
him. He vapored, and fretted, and fumed, and 
trotted up and down, and tried to make himself 
pleasing in Miss Hollis’s big, quiet, gray eyes, and 
failed. It was one of the cases that you sometimes 
meet, even in this country where we marry by Code, 
of a really blind attachment all on one side, without 
the faintest possibility of return. Miss Hollis 
looked on Pack as some sort of vermin running 
about the road. He had no prospects beyond Cap 
tain’s pay, and no wits to help that out by one anna. 


268 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


In a large-sized man, love like bis would have been 
touching. In a good man it would have been grand. 
He being what he was, it was only a nuisance. 

You will believe this much. What you will not 
believe is what follows : Churton, and The Man who 
Knew that the Bisara was, were lunching at the 
Simla Club together. Churton was complaining of 
life in general. His best mare had rolled out of 
stable down the hill and had broken her back ; his 
decisions were being reversed by the upper Courts, 
more than an Assistant Commissioner of eight years’ 
standing has a right to expect ; he knew liver and 
fever, and, for weeks past, had felt out of sorts. 
Altogether, he was disgusted and disheartened. 

Simla Club dining-room is built, as all the world 
knows, in two sections, with an arch-arrangement 
dividing them. Come in, turn to your own left, 
take the table under the window, and you cannot 
see any one who has come in, turned to the right, 
and taken a table on the right side of the arch. 
Curiously enough, every word that you say can be 
heard, not onl} r by the other diner, but by the serv- 
ants beyond the screen through which they bring 
dinner. This is worth knowing : an echoing-room 
is a trap to be forewarned against. 

Half in fun, and half hoping to be believed, The 
Man who Knew told Churton the story of the Bisara 
of Pooree at rather greater length than I have told it 
to you in this place ; winding up with a suggestion 
that Churton might as well throw the little box 
down the hill and see whether all his troubles would 


THE BISARA OF POOREE. 


269 


go with it. In ordinary ears, English ears, the tale 
was only an interesting bit of folk-lore. Churton 
laughed, said that he felt better for his tiffin, and 
went out. Pack had been tiffining by himself to 
the right of the arch, and had heard everything*. 
He was nearly mad with his absurd infatuation for 
Miss Hollis that all Simla had been laughing about. 

It is a curious thing that, when a man hates or 
loves beyond reason, he is ready to go beyond 
reason to gratify his feelings. Which he would not 
do for money or power merely. Depend upon it, 
Solomon would never have built altars to Ashtaroth 
and all those ladies with queer names, if there had 
not been trouble of some kind in his zenana , and 
nowhere else. But this is beside the story. The 
facts of the case are these : Pack called on Churton 
next day when Churton was out, left his card, and 
stole the Bisara of Pooree from its place under the 
clock on the mantelpiece! Stole it like the thief 
he was by nature. Three days later, all Simla was 
electrified by the news that Miss Hollis had ac- 
cepted Pack — the shriveled rat, Pack! Do you 
desire clearer evidence than this ? The Bisara of 
Pooree had been stolen, and it worked as it had 
always done when won by foul means. 

There are three or four times in a man’s life when 
he is justified in meddling with other people’s 
affairs to play Providence. 

The Man who Knew felt that he was justified ; 
but believing and acting on a belief are quite dif- 
ferent things. The insolent satisfaction of Pack as 


270 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

he ambled by the side of Miss Hollis, and Chur ton’s 
striking release from liver, as soon as the Bisara of 
Pooree had gone, decided the Man. He explained 
to Chur ton and Chur ton laughed, because he was 
not brought up to believe that men on the Govern- 
ment House List steal at least little things. But 

the miraculous acceptance by Miss Hollis of that 
tailor, Pack, decided him to take steps on suspicion. 
He vowed that he only wanted to find out where 
his ruby-studded silver box had vanished to. You 
cannot accuse a man on the Government House 
List of stealing. And if you rifle his room you are 
a thief yourself. Churton, prompted by The Man 
who Knew, decided on burglary. If he found noth- 
ing in Pack’s room .... but it is not nice to think 
of what would have happened in that case. 

Pack went to a dance at Benmore — Benmore was 
Benmore in those days, and not an office — and 
danced fifteen waltzes out of twenty-two with Miss 
Hollis. Churton and the Man took all the keys 
that they could get their hands on, and went to 
Pack’s room in the hotel, certain that his servants 
would be away. Pack was a cheap soul. He had 
not purchased a decent cash-box to keep his papers 
in, but one of those native imitations that you 
buy for ten rupees. It opened to any sort of key, 
and there at the bottom, under Pack’s Insurance 
Policy, lay the Bisara of Pooree ! 

Churton called Pack names, put the Bisara of 
Pooree in his pocket, and went to the dance with 
The Man. At least, he came in time for supper, 


THE BISARA OF POOREE. 


271 


and saw the beginning of the end in Miss Hollis’s 
eyes. She was hysterical after supper, and was 
taken away by her Mamma. 

At the dance, with the abominable Bisara in his 
pocket, Churton twisted his foot on one of the steps 
leading down to the old Bink, and had to be sent 
home in a rickshaw, grumbling. He did not believe 
in the Bisara of Pooree any the more for this mani- 
festation, but he sdught out Pack and called him 
some ugly names ; and “ thief ” was the mildest of 
them. Pack took the names with the nervous smile 
of a little man who wants both soul and body to 
resent an insult, and went his w T ay. There was no 
public scandal. 

A week later, Pack got his definite dismissal from 
Miss Hollis. There had been a mistake in the plac- 
ing of her affections, she said. So he went away to 
Madras, where he can do no great harm even if he 
lives to be a Colonel. 

Churton insisted upon The Man who Knew taking 
the Bisara of Pooree as a gift. The Man took it, 
went down to the Cart-Road at once, found an ekka- 
pony with a blue bead-necklace, fastened the Bisara 
of Pooree inside the necklace with a piece of shoe- 
string and thanked Heaven that he was rid of a 
danger. Remember, in case you ever find it, that 
you must not destroy the Bisara of Pooree. I have 
not time to explain why just now, but the power 
lies in the little wooden fish. Mister Gubernatis or 
Max Muller could tell you more about it than I. 

You will say that all this story is made up. Very 


272 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

well. If ever you come across a little, silver, ruby- 
studded box, seven-eighths of an inch long by three- 
quarters wide, with a dark-brown wooden fish, 
wrapped in gold cloth, inside it, keep it. Keep it 
for three years, and then you will discover for your- 
self whether my story is true or false. 

Better still, steal it as Pack did, and you will be 
sorry that you had not killed yourself in the be- 
ginning. 


THE GATE CF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 273 


THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 

“If I can attain Heaven for a pice, why should you be 
envious ? ” 

Opium Smoker's Proverb. 

This is no work of mine. My friend, Gabral 
Misquitta, the half-caste, spoke it all, between moon- 
set and morning, six weeks before he died ; and I 
; took it down from his mouth as he answered my 
questions so : — 

It lies between the Coppersmith’s Gully and the 
pipestem sellers’ quarter, within a hundred yards, 
too, as the crow flies, of the Mosque of Wazir Khan. 
I don’t mind telling any one this much, but I defy 
him to find the Gate, however well he may think 
he knows the City. You might even go through 
the very gully it stands in a hundred times, and be 
none the wiser. We used to call the gully, “the 
Gully of the Black Smoke,” but its native name is 
altogether different of course. A loaded donkey 
couldn’t pass between the walls ; and, at one point, 
just before you reach the Gate, a bulged house- 
front makes people go along all sideways. 

It isn’t really a gate though. It’s a house. Old 
Fung-Tching had it first five years ago. He was a 
boot-maker in Calcutta. They say that he mur- 
dered his wife there when he was drunk. That 
18 


274 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

was why he dropped bazarum and took to the Black 
Smoke instead. Later on, he came up north and 
opened the Gate as a house where you could get 
your smoke in peace and quiet. Mind you, it was 
a pukka, respectable opium-house, and not one of 
those stifling, sweltering chandoo-khanas , that you 
can find all over the City. No ; the old man knew 
his business thoroughly, and he was most clean for 
a Chinaman. He was a one-eyed little chap, not 
much more than five feet high, and both his mid- 
dle fingers were gone. All the same, he was the 
handiest man at rolling black bills I have ever seen. 
Never seemed to be touched by the Smoke, either ; 
and what he took day and night, night and day, 
was a caution. I’ve been at it five years, and I can 
do my fair share of the Smoke with any one ; but 
I was a child to Fung-Tching that way. All the 
same, the old man was keen on his money, very 
keen ; and that’s what I can’t understand. I heard 
he saved a good deal before he died, but his nephew 
has got all that now ; and the old man’s gone back 
to China to, be buried. 

He kept the big upper room, where his best cus- 
tomers gathered, as neat as a new pin. In one corner 
used to stand Fung-Tching’s Joss— almost as ugly 
as Fung-Tching — and there were always sticks burn- 
ing under his nose : but you never smelt ’em when 
the pipes were going thick. Opposite the Joss was 
Fung-Tching’s coffin. He had spent a good deal of 
his savings on that, and whenever a new man came 
to the Gate he was always introduced to it. It was 


THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 275 

lacquered black, with red and gold writings on it, 
and I’ve heard that Fung-Tching brought it out all 
the way from China. I don’t know whether that’s 
true or not, but I know that, if I came first in the 
evening, I used to spread my mat just at the foot of 
it. It was a quiet corner, you see, and a sort of 
breeze from the gully came in at the window now 
and then. Besides the mats, there was no other 
furniture in the room — only the coffin, and the old 
Joss all green and blue and purple with age and 
polish. 

Fung-Tching never told us why he called the 
place “ The Gate of a Hundred Sorrows.” (He 
was the only Chinaman I know who used bad-sound- 
ing fancy names. Most of them are flowery. As 
you’ll see in Calcutta.) We used to find that out 
for ourselves. Nothing grows on you so much, if 
you’re white, as the Black Smoke. A yellow man 
is made different. Opium doesn’t tell on him 
scarcely at all ; but white and black suffer a good 
deal. Of course, there are some people that the 
Smoke doesn’t touch any more than tobacco would 
at first. They just doze a bit, as one would fall 
asleep naturally, and next morning they are almost 
fit for work. Now, I was one of that sort when I 
began, but I’ve been at it for five years pretty 
steadily, and it’s different now. There was an old 
aunt of mine, down Agra way, and she left me a 
little at her death. About sixty rupees a month 
secured. Sixty isn’t much. I can recollect a time, 
seems hundreds and hundreds of years ago, that I 


276 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


was getting my three hundred a month, and pick- 
ings, when I was working on a big timber contract 
in Calcutta. 

I didn’t stick to that work for long. The Black 
Smoke does not allow of much other business ; and 
even though I am very little affected by it, as men 
go, I couldn’t do a day’s work now to save my life. 
After all, sixty rupees is what I want. When old 
Fung-Tching was alive he used to draw the money 
for me, give me about half of it to live on (I eat 
very little), and the rest he kept himself. I was 
free of the Gate at any time of the day and night, 
and could smoke and sleep there when I liked, so I 
didn’t care. I know the old man made a good thing 
out of it ; but that’s no matter. Nothing matters 
much to me ; and, besides, the money always came 
fresh and fresh each month. 

There was ten of us met at the Gate when the 
place was first opened. Me, and two Baboos from 
a Government Office somewhere in Anarkulli, but 
they got the sack and couldn’t pay (no man who 
has to work in the daylight can do the Black Smoke 
for any length of time straight on) ; a Chinaman 
that was Fung-Tching’s nephew ; a bazar-woman 
that had got a lot of money somehow ; an English 
loafer — Mac-Somebody I think, but I have forgotten 
— that smoked heaps, but never seemed to pay any- 
thing (they said he had saved Fung-Tching’s life at 
some trial in Calcutta when he was a barrister); 
another Eurasian, like myself, from Madras ; a half 
caste woman, and a couple of men who said they 


THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 277 

bad come from the North. I think they must have 
been Persians or Afghans or something. There 
are not more than five of us living now, but we 
come regular. I don’t know what happened to the 
Baboos; but the bazar- woman she died after six 
months of the Gate, and I think Fung-Tching took 
her bangles and nose-ring for himself. But I’m not 
certain. The Englishman, he drank as well as 
smoked, and he dropped off. One of the Persians 
got killed in a row at night by the big well near 
the mosque a long time ago, and the Police shut up 
the well, because they said it was full of foul air. 
They found him dead at the bottom of it. So, you 
see, there is only me, the Chinaman, the half-caste 
woman that we call the Memsahib (she used to live 
with Fung-Tching), the other Eurasian, and one of 
the Persians. The Memsahib looks very old now. 
I think she was a young woman when the Gate was 
opened ; but we are all old for the matter of that. 
Hundreds and hundreds of years old. It is very 
hard to keep count of time in the Gate, and besides, 
time doesn’t matter to me. I drew my sixty rupees 
fresh and fresh every month. A very, very long 
while ago, when I used to be getting three hundred 
and fifty rupees a month, and pickings, on a big 
timber-contract at Calcutta, I had a wife of sorts. 
But she’s dead now. People said that I killed her 
by taking to the Black Smoke. Perhaps I did, but 
it’s so long since it doesn’t matter. Sometimes 
when I first came to the Gate, I used to feel sorry 
for it ; but that’s all over and done with long ago, 


278 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


and I draw ray sixty rupees fresh and fresh every 
month, and am quite happy. Not drunk happy, you 
know, but always quiet and soothed and contented. 

How did I take to it ? It began at Calcutta. I 
used to try it in my own house, just to see what it 
was like. I never went very far, but I think my 
wife must have died then. Anyhow, I found my- 
self here, and got to know Fung-Tching. I don’t 
remember rightly how that came about ; but he told 
me of the Gate and I used to go there, and, some- 
how, I have never got away from it since. Mind 
you, though, the Gate was a respectable place in 
Fung-Tching’s time where you could be comfort- 
able, and not at all like the chandoo-khanas where the 
niggers go. No ; it was clean and quiet, and not 
crowded. Of course, there were others besides us 
ten and the man ; but we always had a mat apiece 
with a wadded woolen headpiece, all covered with 
black and red dragons and things ; just like a coffin 
in the corner. 

At the end of one’s third pipe the dragons used 
to move about and fight. I’ve watched ’em, many 
and many a night through. I used to regulate my 
Smoke that way, and now it takes a dozen pipes to 
make ’em stir. Besides, they are all torn and dirty, 
like the mats, and old Fung-Tching is dead. He 
died a couple of years ago, and gave me the pipe I 
always use now — a silver one, with queer beasts 
crawling up and down the receiver-bottle below the 
cup. Before that, I think, I used a big bamboo 
stem with a copper cup, a very small one, and a 


THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 279 

green jade mouthpiece. It was a little thicker than 
a walking-stick stem, and smoked sweet, very sweet. 
The bamboo seemed to suck up the smoke. Silver 
doesn’t, and I’ve got to clean it out now and then, 
that’s a great deal of trouble, but I smoke it for the 
old man’s sake. He must have made a good thing 
out of me, but he always gave me clean mats and 
pillows, and the best stuff you could get anywhere. 

When he died, his nephew Tsin-ling took up the 
Gate, and he called it the “ Temple of the Three 
Possessions ; ” but we old ones speak of it as the 
“ Hundred Sorrows,” all the same. The nephew 
does things very shabbily, and I think the Memsahib 
must help him. She lives with him ; same as she used 
to do with the old man. The two let in all sorts of 
low people, niggers and all, and the Black Smoke isn’t 
as good as it used to be. I’ve found burnt bran in 
my pipe over and over again. The old man would 
have died if that had happened in his time. Besides, 
the room is never cleaned, and all the mats are torn 
and cut at the edges. The coffin has gone — gone 
to China again — with the old man and two ounces 
of smoke inside it, in case he should want ’em on the 
way. 

The Joss doesn’t get so many sticks burnt under 
his noseas he used to ; that’s a sign of ill-luck, as sure 
as Death. He’s all brown, too, and no one ever at- 
tends to him. That’s the MemsahiVs work, I know ; 
because, when Tsin-ling tried to burn gilt paper be 
fore him, she said it was a waste of money, and, if 
he kept a stick burning very slowly, the Joss wouldn’t 


280 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

know the difference. So now we’ve got the sticks 
mixed with a lot of glue, and they take half -an-h our 
longer to burn, and smell stinky. Let alone the 
smell of the room by itself. No business can get on 
if they try that sort of thing. The Joss doesn’t 
like it. I can see that. Late at night, sometimes, he 
turns all sorts of queer colors — blue and green and 
red — just as he used to do when old Fung-Tching 
was alive ; and he rolls his eyes and stamps his feet 
like a devil. 

I don’t know why I don’t leave the place and smoke 
quietly in a little room of my own in the bazar. 
Most like, Tsin-ling would kill me if I went away — 
he draws my sixty rupees now — and besides, it’s so 
much trouble, and I’ve grown to be very fond of the 
Gate. It’s not much to look at. Not what it was 
in the old man’s time, but I couldn’t leave it. I’ve 
seen so many come in and out. And I’ve seen so 
many die here on the mats that I should be afraid of 
dying in the open now. I’ve seen some things that 
people would call strange enough ; but nothing is 
strange when you’re on the Black Smoke, except the 
Black Smoke. And if it was, it wouldn’t matter. 
Fung-Tching used to be very particular about his 
people, and never got in any one who’d give trouble 
by dying messy and such. But the nephew isn’t 
half so careful. He tells everywhere that he keeps 
a H first-chop ” house. Never tries to get men in 
quietly, and make them comfortable like Fung- 
Tching did. That’s why the Gate is getting a little 
bit more known than it used to be. Among the nig- 


THE GATE OF A HUNDRED SORROWS. 281 

gers of course. The nephew daren’t get a white, or, 
for matter of that, a mixed skin into the place. He 
has to keep us three of course — me and the Memsahib 
and the other Eurasian. We’re fixtures. But he 
wouldn’t give us credit for a pipeful — not for any- 
thing. 

One of these days, I hope, I shall die in the Gate. 
The Persian and the Madras man are terrible shaky 
now. They’ve got a boy to light their pipes for 
them. I always do that myself. Most like, I shall 
see them carried out before me. I don’t think I shall 
ever outlive the Memsahib or Tsin-ling. Women 
last longer than men at the Black Smoke, and Tsin- 
ling has a deal of the old man’s blood in him, though 
he does smoke cheap stuff. The bazar-woman knew 
when she was going two days before her time ; and 
she died on a clean mat with a nicely wadded pillow, 
and the old man hung up her pipe just above the Joss. 
He was always fond of her, I fancy. But he took 
her bangles just the same. 

I should like to die like the bazar- woman — on a 
clean, cool mat with a pipe of good stuff between my 
lips. When I feel I’m going, I shall ask Tsin-ling 
for them, and he can draw my sixty rupees a month, 
fresh and fresh, as long as he pleases. Then I shall 
lie back, quiet and comfortable, and watch the black 
and red dragons have their last big fight together ; 
and then .... 

Well, it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters much 
to me — only I wish Tsin-ling wouldn’t put bran 
into the Black Smoke. 


282 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


BIMI. 

The orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to 
the sheep-pen began the discussion. The night was 
stiflingly hot, and as Hans Breitmann and I passed 
him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak of the 
steamer, he roused himself and chattered obscenely. 
He had been caught somewhere in the Malayan Ar- 
chipelago, and was going to England to be exhibited 
at a shilling a head. For four days he had struggled, 
yelled, and wrenched at the heavy iron bars of his 
prison without ceasing, and had nearly slain a Las- 
car incautious enough to come within reach of the 
great hairy paw. 

“ It would be well for you, mine friend, if you 
was a liddle seasick,” said Hans Breitmann, pausing 
by the cage. “ You haf too much Ego in your Cos- 
mos.” 

The orang-outang’s arm slid out negligently from 
between the bars. Ho one would have believed 
that it would make a sudden snake-like rush at the 
German’s breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit 
tore out : Hans stepped back unconcernedly, to 
pluck a banana from a bunch hanging close to one 
of the boats. 


BIMI. 


283 


“ Too much Ego,” said he, peeling the fruit and 
offering it to the caged devil, who was rending the 
silk to tatters. 

Then we laid out our bedding in the bows, among 
the sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze that the 
pace of the ship might give us. The sea was like 
smoky oil, except where it turned to fire under our 
forefoot and whirled back into the dark in smears of 
dull flame. There was a thunder-storm some miles 
away : we could see the glimmer of the lightning. 
The ship’s cow, distressed by the heat and the smell 
of the ape-beast in the cage, lowed unhappily from 
time to time in exactly the same key as the lookout 
man at the bows answered the hourly call from the 
bridge. The trampling tune of the engines was very 
distinct, and the jarring of the ash-lift, as it was 
tipped into the sea, hurt the procession of hushed 
noise. Hans lay down by my side and lighted a 
good-night cigar. This was naturally the beginning 
of conversation. He owned a voice as soothing as 
the wash of the sea, and stores of experiences as 
vast as the sea itself ; for his business in life was to 
wander up and down the world, collecting orchids 
and wild beasts and ethnological specimens for Ger- 
man and American dealers. I watched the glowing 
end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom, as the 
sentences rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep. 
The orang-outang, troubled by some dream of the 
forests of his freedom, began to yell like a soul in 
purgatory, and to wrench madly at the bars of the 
cage. 


284: 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


“ If he was out now dere would not be much of 
us left hereabouts,” said Hans, lazily. “ He screams 
good. See, now, how I shall tame him when he 
stops himself.” 

There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans 1 
mouth came an imitation of a snake’s hiss, so perfect 
that I almost sprung to my feet. The sustained 
murderous sound ran along the deck, and the wrench- 
ing at the bars ceased. The orang-outang was 
quaking in an ecstasy of pure terror. 

“ Dot stop him,” said Hans. “ I learned dot 
trick in Mogoung Tanjong when I was collecting 
liddle monkeys for some peoples in Berlin. Efery 
one in der world is afraid of der monkeys — except 
der snake. So I blay snake against monkey, and 
he keep quite still. Dere was too much Ego in his 
Cosmos. Dot is der soul-custom of monkeys. Are .1 
you asleep, or will you listen, and I will tell a dale ! 
dot you shall not pelief ? ” 

“ There’s no tale in the wide world that I can’t 
believe,” I said. 

“ If you have learned pelief you haf learned some- 
-****$ r " Hcrw*- I shall try your pelief. Good ! ; 
When I was collecting dose liddle monkeys — it was 
in ’79 or ’80, und I was in der islands of der Archi- 
pelago — over dere in der dark ” — he pointed south- 
ward to Hew Guinea generally — “ Mein Gott ! I , 
would sooner collect life red devils than liddle mon- 
keys. When dey do not bite off your thumbs dev 
are always dying from nostalgia — home-sick— for 
dey haf der imperfect soul, which is midway arrested 


BIMI. 


285 


in defelopment — und too much Ego. I was dere for 
nearly a year, und dere I found a man dot was 
called Bertran. He was a Frenchman, und he was 
a goot man — naturalist to the bone. Dey said he 
was an escaped convict, but he was a naturalist, and 
dot was enough for me. He would call all her life 
beasts from der forest, und dey would come. I said 
he was St. Francis of Assisi in a new dransmigration 
produced, und he laughed und said he haf never 
preach to der fishes. He sold them for tripang — 
beche-de-mer. 

“ Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer 
men, he had in der house shush such anoder as dot 
devil-animal in der cage — a great orang-outang dot 
thought he was a man. He haf found him when he 
was a child — der orang-outang — und he was child 
and brother and opera comique all round to Bertran. 
He had his room in dot house — not a cage, but a 
room — mit a bed and sheets, and he would go to 
bed and get up in der morning and smoke his cigar 
und eat his dinner mit Bertran, und walk mit 
him hand-in-hand, which was most horrible. Herr 
Gott ! I haf seen dot beast throw himself back in 
his chair and laugh when Bertran haf made fun of 
me. He was not a beast ; he was a man, and he 
talked to Bertran, und Bertran comprehended, for 
I have seen dem. Und he was always politeful to 
me except when I talk too long to Bertran und say 
nodings at all to him. Den he would pull me a wav 
— dis great, dark devil, mit his enormous paws — 
shush as if I was a child. He was not a beast, he 


286 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


was a man. Dis I saw pefore I know him three 
months, und Bertran he haf saw the same ; and 
Bimi, der orang-outang, haf understood us both, mit 
his cigar between his big-dog teeth und der blue 
gum. 

<f I was dere a year, dere und at dere oder islands 
scmedimes for monkeys and somedimes for butter- 
flies und orchits. One time Bertran says to me dot 
he will be married, because he haf found a girl dot 
was goot, and he inquire if this marrying idea was 
right. I would not say, pecause it was not me dot 
was going to be married. Den he go off courting 
der girl — she was a half-caste French girl — very 
pretty. Haf you got a new light for my cigar ? 
Oof ! Yery pretty. Only I say : 4 Haf you thought 
of Bimi ? If he pulls me away when I talk to you, 
what will he do to your wife ? He will pull her in 
pieces. If I was you, Bertran, I would gif my wife 
for wedding present der stuff figure of Bimi.’ By 
dot time I had learned somedings about der monkey 
peoples. ‘ Shoot him ? ’ says Bertran. 6 He is 
your beast,’ I said ; ‘ if he was mine he would be 
shot now.” 

“ Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of 
Bimi. Mein Gott ! I tell you dot he talked through 
dose fingers. It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet all 
gomplete. He slide his hairy arm round my neck 
and he tilt up my chin und look into my face, shust 
to see if I understood his talk so well as he under- 
stood mine. 

“ i See now dere ! ’ says Bertran, ‘ und you would 


smi. 287 

shoot him while he is cuddling you ? Dot is der 
Teuton ingrate ? ’ 

“ But I knew dot I had made Bimi a life’s enemy, 
pecause his fingers haf talk murder through the 
back of my neck. Next dime I see Bimi dere was 
a pistol in my belt, und he touch it once, and I open 
der breech to show him it was loaded. He haf seen 
der liddle monkeys killed in der woods, and he un- 
derstood. 

“ So Bertran he was married, and he forgot clean 
about Bimi dot was skippin’ alone on der beach mit 
der half of a human soul in his belly. I was see him 
skip, und he took a big bough und thrash der sand 
till he haf made a great hole like a grave. So I says 
to Bertran : ‘ For any sakes, kill Bimi. He is mad 
mit der jealousy.’ 

“ Bertran haf said : ‘ He is not mad at all. He 
haf obey and love my wife, und if she speaks he will 
get her slippers,’ und he looked at his wife across 
der room. She was a very pretty girl. 

“ Den I said to him : ‘ Dost thou pretend to know 
monkeys und dis beast dot is lashing himself mad 
upon der sands, pecause you do not talk to him ? 
Shoot him when he comes to der house, for he haf 
der light in his eyes dot mean killing— und killing.’ 
Bimi come to der house, but dere was no light in 
his eyes. It was all put away, cunning— so cunning 
— und he fetch der girl her slippers, and Bertran 
turn to me und say : ‘ Dost >thou know him in nine 
months more dan I haf known him in twelve years { 
Shall a child stab his fader ? I have fed him, und 


288 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


he was my child. Do not speak this nonsense to 
my wife or to me any more . 5 

“ Dot next day Bertran came to my house to help 
me make some wood cases for der specimens, und 
he tell me dot he haf left his wife a liddle while mit 
Bimi in der garden. Den I finish my cases quick, 
und I say : ‘ Let us go to your house und get a 
trink.’ He laugh und say : ‘ Come along, dry mans.’ 

“ His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi did 
not come when Bertran called. TJnd his wife did 
not come when he called, und he knocked at her 
bedroom door und dot was shut tight — locked. Den 
he look at me, und his face was white. I broke 
down der door mit my shoulder, und der thatch of 
der roof was torn into a great hole, und der sun 
came in upon der floor. Haf you ever seen paper 
in der waste-basket, or cards at whist on der table 
scattered ? Dere was no wife dot could be seen. I 
tell you dere was noddings in dot room dot might 
be a woman. Dere was stuff on der floor, und dot 
was all. I looked at dese things und I was very 
sick ; but Bertran looked a liddle longer at what 
was upon the floor und der walls, und der hole in 
der thatch. Den he pegan to laugh, soft and low, 
und I knew und thank Gott dot he was mad. 
He nefer cried, he nefer prayed. He stood still in 
der doorway und laugh to himself. Den he said : 
* She haf locked herself in dis room, and he haf torn 
up der thatch. Fi done . Dot is so. We will mend 
der thatch und wait for Bimi. He will surely come . 5 

“ I tell you we waited ten days in dot nouse, 


Ban. 


289 


after der room was made into a room again, and 
once or twice we saw Bimi cornin’ a liddle way 
from der woods. He was afraid pecause he haf 
done wrong. Bertran called him when he was come 
to look on the tenth day, und Bimi come skipping 
along der beach und making noises, mit a long piece 
of black hair in his hands. Den Bertran laugh and 
say, ‘ Fi done ! 9 shust as if it was a glass broken 
upon der table ; und Bimi come nearer, und Bertran 
was honey-sweet in his voice and laughed to him- 
self. For three days he made love to Bimi, pecause 
Bimi would not let himself be touched. Den Bimi 
come to dinner at der same table mit us, und der 
hair on his hands was all black und thick mit — mit 
what had dried on his hands. Bertran gave him 
sangaree till Bimi was drunk and stupid, und den — ” 

Hans paused to puff at his cigar. 

“ And then ? ” said I. 

“ Und den Bertran kill him with his hands, und 
I go for a walk upon der beach. It was Bertran’s 
own piziness. When I come back der ape he was 
dead, und Bertran he was dying abofe him; but 
still he laughed a liddle und low, and he was quite 
content. How you know der formula of der 
strength of der orang-outang — it is more as seven 
to one in relation to man. But Bertran, he haf 
killed Bimi mit sooch dings as Gott gif him. Dot 
was der mericle.” 

The infernal clamor in the cage recommenced. 
“ Aha ! Dot friend of ours haf still too much Ego 
in his Cosmos. Be quiet, thou ! ” 

19 


290 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


Hans hissed long and venomously. "We could 
hear the great beast quaking in his cage. 

“ But why in the world didn’t you help Bertran 
instead of letting him be killed ? ” I asked. 

“ My friend,” said Hans, composedly stretching 
himself to slumber, “ it was not nice even to mine- 
self dot I should lif after I had seen dot room wit 
der hole in der thatch. Und Bertran, he was her 
husband. Goot-night, und sleep welL” 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


291 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


Once upon a time there was a king who lived on 
the road to Thibet, very many miles in the Him- 
alaya Mountains. His kingdom was 11,000 feet 
above the sea, and exactly four miles square, but 
most of the miles stood on end, owing to the nature 
of the country. His revenues were rather less than 
£400 yearly, and they were expended on the main- 
tenance of one elephant and a standing army of 
five men. He was tributary to the Indian govern* 
ment, who allowed him certain sums for keeping a 
section of the Himalaya- Thibet road in repair. He 
further increased his revenues by selling timber to 
the railway companies, for he would cut the great 
deodar trees in his own forest and they fell thunder- 
ing into the Sutlej River and were swept down to 
the Plains, 300 miles away, and became railway 
ties. Now and again this king, whose name does 
not matter, would mount a ring-streaked horse and 
ride scores of miles to Simlatown to confer with the 
lieutenant-governor on matters of state, or assure the 
viceroy that his sword was at the service of the 
queen-empress. Then the viceroy would cause a 
ruffle of drums to be sounded and the ring-streaked 


292 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

horse and the cavalry of the state — two men in 
tatters — and the herald who bore the Silver Stick 
before the king would trot back to their own place, 
which was between the tail of a heaven-climbing 
glacier and a dark birch forest. 

Now, from such a king, always remembering that 
he possessed one veritable elephant and could count 
his descent for 1,200 years, I expected, when it was 
my fate to wander through his dominions, no more 
than mere license to live. 

The night had closed in rain, and rolling clouds 
blotted out the lights of the villages in the valley. 
Forty miles away, untouched by cloud or storm, 
the white shoulder of Dongo Pa — the Mountain of 
the Council of the Gods — upheld the evening star. 
The monkeys sung sorrowfully to each other as they 
hunted for dry roots in the fern-draped trees, and 
the last puff of the day-wind brought from the 
unseen villages the scent of damp wood smoke, hot 
cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. 
That smell is the true smell of the Himalayas, and 
if it once gets into the blood of a man he will, at 
the last, forgetting everything else, return to the 
Hills to die. The clouds closed and the smell went 
away, and there remained nothing in all the world 
except chilling white mists and the boom of the 
Sutlej River. 

A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want to die, 
bleated lamentably at my tent-door. He was scuf- 
fling with the prime minister and the director-general 
of public education, and he was a royal gift to me 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


293 


and my camp servants. I expressed my thanks 
suitably and inquired if I might have audience of 
the king. The prime minister readjusted his turban 
— it had fallen off in the struggle — and assured me 
that the king would be very pleased to see me. 
Therefore I dispatched two bottles as a foretaste, 
and when the sheep had entered upon another in 
carnation, climbed up to the king’s palace through 
the wet. He had sent his army to escort me, but 
it stayed to talk with my cook. Soldiers are very 
much alike all the world over. 

The palace was a four-roomed, whitewashed mud- 
and-timber house, the finest in all the Hills for a 
day’s journey. The king was dressed in a purple 
velvet jacket, white muslin trousers, and a saffron- 
yellow turban of price. He gave me audience in a 
little carpeted room opening off the palace court- 
yard, which was occupied by the elephant of state. 
The great beast was sheeted and anchored from 
trunk to tail, and the curve of his back stood out 
against the sky line. 

The prime minister and the director-general of 
public instruction were present to introduce me; 
but all the court had been dismissed lest the two 
bottles aforesaid should corrupt their morals. The 
king cast a wreath of heavy, scented flowers round 
my neck as I bowed, and inquired how my honored 
presence had the felicity to be. I said that through 
seeing his auspicious countenance the mists of the 
night had turned into sunshine, and that by reason 
of his beneficent sheep his good deeds would be 


294 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

remembered by the gods. He said that since I had 
set my magnificent foot in his kingdom the crops 
would probably yield seventy per cent, more than 
the average. I said that the fame of the king had 
reached to the four corners of the earth, and that 
the nations gnashed their teeth when they heard 
daily of the glory of his realm and the wisdom of 
his moon-like prime minister and lotus-eyed director- 
general of public education. 

Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and 1 
was at the king’s right hand. Three minutes later 
he was telling me that the condition of the maize 
crop was something disgraceful, and that the rail- 
way companies would not pay him enough for his 
timber. The talk shifted to and fro with the bottles. 
We discussed very many quaint things, and the 
king became confidential on the subject of govern- 
ment generally. Most of all he dwelt on the short- 
comings of one of his subjects, who, from what I 
could gather, had been paralyzing the executive. 

“ In the old days,” said the king, “ I could have 
ordered the elephant yonder to trample him to death. 
How I must e’en send him seventy miles across the 
hills to be tried, and his keep for that time would 
be upon the state. And the elephant eats every- 
thing.” 

“What be the man’s crimes, Rajah Sahib?” 
said I. 

“ Firstly, he is an ‘ outlander,’ and no man of 
mine own people. Secondly, since of my favor I 
gave him land upon his coming, he refuses to pay 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


295 


revenue. Am I not the lord of the earth, above 
and below — entitled by right and eus^ m to one 
eighth of the crop ? Yet this devil, establishing him- 
self, refuses to pay a single tax . . . and he brings 
a poisonous spawn of babes.” 

“ Cast him into jail,” I said. 

“ Sahib,” the king answered, shifting a little on 
the cushions, “ once and only once in these forty 
years sickness came upon me so that I was not able 
to go abroad. In that hour I made a vow to my 
God that I would never again cut man or woman 
from the light of the sun and the air of God, for I 
perceived the nature of the punishment. How can 
I break my vow? Were it only the lopping off of 
a hand or a foot, I should not delay. But even that 
is impossible now that the English have rule. One 
or another of my people ” — he looked obliquely at 
the director-general of public education — “ would at 
once write a letter to the viceroy, and perhaps I 
should be deprived of that ruffle of drums.” 

He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water- 
pipe, fitted a plain amber one, and passed the pipe 
to me. “ Hot content with refusing revenue,” he 
continued, “this outlander refuses also to beegar” 
(this is the corvee or forced labor on the roads), 
“and stirs my people up to the like treason. Yet 
he is, if so he wills, an expert log-snatcher. There 
is none better or bolder among my people to clear 
a block of the river when the logs stick fast.” 

“ But he worships strange gods,” said the prime 
minister, deferentially. 


296 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

“ For that I have no concern,” said the king, who 
was as to. "ant as Akbar in matters of belief. “ To 
each man h. own god, and the fire or Mother Earth 
for us all at the last. It is the rebellion that offends 
me.” 

“ The king has an army,” I suggested. “ Has not 
the king burned the man’s house, and left him naked 
to the night dews ? ” 

“ Hay. A hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a 
man. But once I sent my army against him when 
his excuses became wearisome. Of their heads he 
brake three across the top with a stick. The other 
two men ran away. Also the guns would not 
shoot. 

I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One 
third of it was an old muzzle-loading fowling-piece 
with ragged rust holes where the nipples should 
have been ; one third a wirebound match-lock with 
a worm-eaten stock, and one third a four-bore flint 
duck-gun, without a flint. 

“ But it is to be remembered,” said the king, reach- 
ing out for the bottle, “ that he is a very expert log- 
snatcher and a man of a merry face. What shall I 
do to him, sahib ? ” 

This was interesting. The timid hill-folk would 
as soon have refused taxes to their king as offer- 
ings to their gods. The rebel must be a man of 
character. 

“ If it be the king’s permission,” I said, “ I will 
not strike my tents till the third day, and I will see 
this man. The mercy of the king is godlike, and 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 297 

rebellion is like unto the sin of witchcraft. More- 
over, both the bottles, and another, be empty.” 

“ You have my leave to go,” said the king. 

Next morning the crier went through the state 
proclaiming that there was a log-jam on the river 
and that it behooved all loyal subjects to clear it. 
The people poured down from their villages to the 
moist, warm valley of poppy fields, and the king and 
I went with them. 

Hundreds of dressed deodar logs had caught on 
a snag of rock, and the river was bringing down 
more logs every minute to complete the blockade. 
The water snarled and wrenched and worried at 
the timber, while the population of the state prodded 
at the nearest logs with poles, in the hope of 
easing the pressure. Then there went up a shout of 
“ Namgay Doola ! Namgay Doola ! ” and a large, 
red-haired villager hurried up, stripping off his 
clothes as he ran. 

“ That is he* That is the rebel ! ” said the king. 
“ Now will the dam be cleared.” 

“ But why has he red hair ? ” I asked, since red- 
hair among hill-folk is as uncommon as blue or green. 

“He is an outlander,” said the king. “Well 
done ! Oh, w T ell done ! ” 

Namgay Doola had scrambled on the jam and 
was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort 
of a boat-hook. It slid forward slowly, as an 
alligator moves, and three or four others followed 
it. The green water spouted through the gaps. 
Then the villagers howled and shouted and leaped 


m 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


among the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate 
timber, and the red head of Hamgay Doola was chief 
among them all. The logs swayed and chafed and 
groaned as fresh consignments from up-stream bat- 
tered the now weakening dam. It gave way at last 
in a smother of foam, racing butts, bobbing black 
heads, and a confusion indescribable, as the river 
tossed everything before it. I saw the red head go 
down with the last remnants of the jam and disappear 
between the great grinding tree trunks. It rose 
close to the bank, and blowing like a grampus, 
Hamgay Doola wiped the water out of his eyes and 
made obeisance to the king. 

I had time to observe the man closely. The 
virulent redness of his shock head and beard was 
most startling, and in the thicket of hair twinkled 
above high cheek-bones two very merry blue eyes. 
He was indeed an outlander, but yet a Thibetan in 
language, habit and attire. He spoke the Lepcha 
dialect with an indescribable softening oi; the gut- 
turals. It was not so much a lisp as an accent. 

“ Whence comest thou ? ” I asked, wondering. 

“ From Thibet.” He pointed across the hills and 
grinned. That grin went straight to my heart. 
Mechanically I held out my hand, and Hamgay 
Doola took it. Ho pure Thibetan would have under- 
stood the meaning of the gesture. He went away 
to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to his 
village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccount- 
ably familiar. It was the whooping of Hamgay 
Doola, 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


299 


“ You see now,” said the king, “ why I would not 
kill him. He is a bold man among my logs, but,” and 
he shook his head like a schoolmaster, “ I know that 
before long there will be complaints of him in the 
court. Let us return to the palace and do justice.” 

It was that king’s custom to judge his subjects 
every day between eleven and three o’clock. I 
heard him do justice equitably on weighty matters 
of trespass, slander, and a little wife-stealing. Then 
his brow clouded and he summoned me. 

“ Again it is Hamgay Doola,” he said despairingly. 
“Hot content with refusing revenue on his own 
part, he has bound half his village by an oath to the 
like treason. Hever before has such a thing be- 
fallen me ! Hor are my taxes heavy.” 

A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck 
behind his ear, advanced trembling. He had been 
in Hamgay Doola’s conspiracy, but had told every- 
thing and hoped for the king’s favor. 

“ Oh, king ! ” said I, “ if it be the king’s will, let 
this matter stand over till the morning. Only the 
gods can do right in a hurry, and it may be that 
yonder villager has lied.” 

“ Hay, for I know the nature of Hamgay Doola ; 
but since a guest asks, let the matter remain. Wilt 
thou, for my sake, speak harshly to this red-headed 
outlander ? He may listen to thee.” 

I made an attempt that very evening, but for the 
life of me I could not keep my countenance. Ham- 
gay Doola grinned so persuasively amd began to tell 
me about a big brown bear in a poppy field by the 


300 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


river. Would I care to shoot that bear? I spoke 
austerely on the sin of detected conspiracy and the 
certainty of punishment. Namgay Doola’s face 
clouded for a moment. Shortly afterward be with- 
drew from my tent, and I heard'him singing softly 
among the pines. The words were unintelligible to 
me, but the tune, like his liquid, insinuating speech 
seemed the ghost of something strangely familiar. 

“ Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir 
To weeree ala gee.” 

crooned Namgay Doola again and again, and I 
racked my brain for that lost tune. It was not till 
after dinner that I discovered some one had cut a 
square foot of velvet from the center of my best 
camera-cloth. This made me so angry that I 
wandered down the valley in the hope of meeting 
the big brown bear. I could hear him grunting like 
a discontented pig in the poppy field as I waited 
shoulder deep in the dew-dripping Indian corn to 
catch him after his meal. The moon was at full 
and drew out the scent of the tasseled crop. Then 
I heard the anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow— 
one of the little black crummies no bigger than 
Newfoundland dogs. Two shadows that looked like 
a bear and her cub hurried past me. I was in the 
act of firing when I saw that each bore a brilliant 
red head. The lesser animal was trailing something 
rope-like that left a dark track on the path. They 
were within six feet of me, and the shadow of the 
moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces. Velvet- 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


301 


black was exactly the word, for by all the powers of 
moonlight they were masked in the velvet of my 
camera-cloth. I marveled, and went to bed. 

Next morning the kingdom was in an uproar. 
Namgay Doola, men said, had gone forth in the 
night and with a sharp knife had cut off the tail of 
a cow belonging to the rabbit-faced villager who had 
betrayed him. It was sacrilege unspeakable against 
the holy cow ! The state desired his blood, but he 
had retreated into his hut, barricaded the doors 
and windows with big stones, and defied the 
world. 

The king and I and the populace approached the 
hut cautiously. There was no hope of capturing 
our man without loss of life, for from a hole in the 
wall projected the muzzle of an extremely well-cared- 
for gun — the only gun in the state that could shoot. 
Namgay Doola had narrowly missed a villager just 
before we came up. 

The standing army stood. 

It could do no more, for when it advanced pieces 
of sharp shale flew from the windows. To these 
were added from time to time showers of scalding 
water. We saw red heads bobbing up and down 
within. The family of Namgay Doola were aiding 
their sire. Blood-curdling yells of defiance were 
the only answer to our prayers. 

“ Never,” said the king, puffing, “ has such a thing 
befallen my state. Next year I will certainly buy a 
little cannon.” He looked at me imploringly. 

“ Is there any priest in the kingdom to whom he 


302 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

will listen ? ” said I, for a light was beginning to 
break upon me. 

“He worships his own god,” said the prime 
minister. “We can but starve him out.” 

“ Let the white man approach,” said Hamgay 
Doola from within. “ All others I will kill. Send 
me the white man.” 

The door was thrown open and I entered the 
smoky interior of a Thibetan hut crammed with 
children. And every child had flaming red hair. 
A fresh-gathered cow’s tail lay on the floor, and by 
its side two pieces of black velvet — my black velvet 
— rudely hacked into the semblance of masks. 

“ And what is this shame, Hamgay Doola ? ” I 
asked. 

He grinned more charmingly than ever. “ There 
is no shame,” said he. “I did but cut off the tail 
of that man’s cow. He betrayed me. I was minded 
to shoot him, sahib, but not to death. Indeed, not 
to death ; only in the legs.” 

“ And why at all, since it is the custom to pay 
revenue to the king V Why at all ? ” 

“ By the god of my father, I cannot tell, ” said 
Ham gay Doola. 

“ And who was thy father ? ” 

“ The same that had this gun.” He showed me 
his weapon, a Tower musket, bearing date 1832 
and the stamp of the Honorable East India Conn 
panv. 

“ And thy father’s name ? ” said I. 

“ Timlay Doola,” said he. “ At the first, I being 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


303 


then a little child, it is in my mind that he wore a 
red coat.” 

“ Of that I have no doubt ; but repeat the name 
of thy father twice or thrice.” 

He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling 
accent in his" speech came. “ Thimla Dhula ! ” said 
he, excitedly. “ To this hour I worship his god.” 

“ May I see that god ? ” 

“ In a little while — at twilight time.” 

“ Rememberest thou aught of thy father’s 
speech ? ” 

“ It is long ago. But there was one word which 
he said often. Thus, ‘ ’Shun ! ’ Then I and my 
brethren stood upon our feet, our hands to our sides, 
thus.” 

“ Even so. And what was thy mother ? ” 

“A woman of the Hills. We be Lepchas of 
Darjiling, but me they call an outlander because my 
hair is as thou seest.” 

The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on 
the arm gently. The long parley outside the fort 
had lasted far into the day. It was now close upon 
twilight — the hour of the Angelus. Very solemnly 
the red-headed brats rose from the floor and formed 
a semicircle. Hamgay Doola laid his gun aside, 
lighted a little oil-lamp, and set it before a recess in 
the wall. Pulling back a whisp of dirty cloth, he 
revealed a worn brass crucifix leaning against the 
helmet badge of a long-forgotten East India Com- 
pany’s regiment. “ Thus did my father,” he said, 
crossing himself clumsily. The wife and children 


304 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILL3. 


followed suit. Then, all together, they struck up 
the wailing chant that I heard on the hill-side : 

“ Dir hane mard-i-yemen dir 
To weeree ala gee.” 

I was puzzled no longer. Again and again they 
sung, as if their hearts would break, their version of 
the chorus of “ The Wearing of the Green” : 

“ They’re hanging men and women, too. 

For the wearing of the green.” 

A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of the 
brats, a boy about eight years old could he have 
been in the fields last night ? — was watching me as 
he sung. I pulled out a rupee, held the coin between 
finger and thumb, and looked — only looked — at the 
gun leaning against the wall. A grin of brilliant 
and perfect comprehension overspread his porringer- 
like face. Never for an instant stopping the song, 
he held out his hand for the money, and then slid 
the gun to my hand. I might have shot Namgay 
Doola dead as he chanted, but I was satisfied. The 
inevitable blood-instinct held true. Namgay Doola 
drew the curtain across the recess. Angelus was 
over. 

“ Thus my father sung. There was much more 
but I have forgotten, and I do not know the purport 
of even these words, but it may be that the god 
will understand. I am not of this people, and I 
will not pay revenue. ” 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


305 


a And why ? ” 

Again that soul-compelling grin. “What occu- 
pation would be to me between crop and crop ? It is 
better than scaring bears. But these people do not 
understand.” 

He picked the masks off the floor and looked in 
my face as simply as a child. 

“ By what road didst thou attain knowledge to 
make those deviltries ? ” I said, pointing. 

“ I can not tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjiling, 
and yet the stuff ” 

“ Which thou has stolen, ” said I. 

“ Nay, surely. Did I steal ? I desired it so. 
The stuff — the stuff. What else should I have done 
with the stuff ? ” He twisted the velvet between 
his fingers. 

“ But the sin of maiming the cow — consider that.* 

“ Oh, sahib, the man betrayed me ; the heifer’s 
tail waved in the moonlight, and I had my knife. 
What else should I have done \ The tail came off 
ere I was aware. Sahib, thou knowest more than 
I.” 

“ That is true, ” said I. “ Stay within the door. 
I go to speak to the king.” The population of the 
state were ranged on the hillside. I went forth 
and spoke. 

“ Oh, king, ” said I, “ touching this man, there be 
two courses open to thy wisdom. Thou canst 
either hang him from a tree — he and his brood — 
till there remains no hair that is red within thy 
land.” 


so 


306 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

“ Nay,” said the king. “ Why should I hurt the 
little children ? ” 

They had poured out of the hut and were making 
plump obeisances to everybody. Namgay Doola 
waited at the door with his gun across his arm. 

“ Or thou canst, discarding their impiety of the 
cow-maiming, raise him to honor in thy army. He 
comes of a race that will not pay revenue. A red 
flame is in his blood which comes out at the top of 
bis head in that glowing hair. Make him chief 
of thy army. Give him honor as may befall and 
full allowance of work, but look to it, oh, king, that 
neither he nor his hold a foot of earth from thee 
henceforward. Feed him with words and favor and 
also liquor from certain bottles that thou knowest 
of, and he will be a bulwark of defense. But 
deny him even a tuftlet of grass for his own. This 
is the nature that God has given him. Moreover, 
he has brethren ” 

The state groaned unanimously. 

“ But if his brethren come they will surely fight 
with each other till they die ; or else the one will 
always give information concerning the other. Shall 
he be of thy army, oh, king ? Choose.” 

The king bowed his head, and I said : “ Come- 

forth, Namgay Doola, and command the king’s 
army. Thy name shall no more be Namgay in the 
mouths of men, but Patsay Doola, for, as thou hast 
truly said, I know.” 

Then Namgay Doola, new-christened Patsay 
Doola, son of Timlay Doola— which is Tim Doolan 


NAMGAY DOOLA. 


307 


—clasped the king’s feet, cuffed the standing army, 
and hurried in an agony of contrition from temple to 
temple making offerings for the sin of the cattle- 
maiming. 

And the king was so pleased with my perspicacity 
that he offered to sell me a village for £20 sterling. 
But I buy no village in the Himalayas so long as one 
red head flares between the tail of the heaven-climb- 
ing glacier and the dark birch forest. 

I know that breed. 


303 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


, MOTI GUJ — MUTINEER. 

Once upon a time there was a coffee-planter in 
India who wished to clear some forest land for cof- 
fee-planting. When he had cut down all the trees 
and burned the under wood, the stumps still remained. 
Dynamite is expensive and slow fire slow. The 
happy medium for stump-clearing is the lor(j of all 
beasts, who is the elephant. He will either push the 
stump out of the ground with his tusks, if he has any, 
or drag it out with ropes. The planter, therefore, 
hired elephants by ones and twos and threes, and fell 
to work. The very best of all the elephants be- 
longed to the very worst of all the drivers or ma- 
houts ; and this superior beast’s name was Moti Guj. 
He was the absolute property of his mahout, which 
would never have been the case under native rule : 
for Moti Guj was a creature to be desired by kings, 
and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl 
Elephant. Because the British government was in 
the land, Deesa, the mahout, enjoyed his property 
undisturbed. He was dissipated. When he had 
made much money through the strength of his ele- 
phant, he would get extremely drunk and give Moti 
Guj a beating with a tent-peg over the tender nails 
of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the life 
oat of Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER. 


309 


after the beating was over, Deesa would embrace his 
trunk and weep and call him his love and his life and 
the liver of his soul, and give him some liquor. Moti 
Guj was very fond of liquor — arrack for choice, 
though he would drink palm-tree toddy if nothing 
better offered. Then Deesa would go to sleep 
between Moti Guj’s forefeet, and as Deesa generally 
chose the middle of the public road, and as Moti 
Guj mounted guard over him, and would not permit 
horse, foot, or cart to pass by, traffic was congested 
till Deesa saw fit to wake up. 

There was no sleeping in the day-time on the 
planter’s clearing : the wages were too high to risk. 
Deesa sat on Moti Guj’s neck and gave him orders, 
while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps — for he owned 
a magnificent pair of tusks ; or pulled at the end of 
a rope — for he had a magnificent pair of shoulders 
— while Deesa kicked him behind the ears and said 
he was the king of elephants. At evening time 
Moti Guj would wash down his three hundred pounds’ 
weight of green food with a quart of arrack, and 
Deesa would take a share, and sing songs between 
Moti Guj’s legs till it was time to go to bed. Qnce 
a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and 
Moti Guj lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows, 
while Deesa went over him with a coir swab and a 
brick. Moti Guj neyer mistook the pounding blow 
of the latter for the smack of the former that 
warned him to get up and turned over on the other 
side. Then Deesa would look at his feet and ex- 
amine his eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty 


310 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


ears in case of sores or budding ophthalmia. After 
inspection the two would “ come up with a song 
from the sea,” Moti Guj, all black and shining, wav* 
dng a torn tree branch twelve feet long in his trunk, 
and Deesa knotting up his own long wet hair. 

It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the 
return of the desire to drink deep. He wished for 
an orgy. The little draughts that led nowhere were 
taking the manhood out of him. 

He went to the planter, and “ My mother’s dead,” 
said he, weeping. 

“ She died on the last plantation two months ago, 
and she died once before that when you were work- 
ing for me last year,” said the planter, who knew 
something of the ways of nativedom. 

“ Then it’s my aunt, and she was just the same as 
a mother to me,” said Deesa, weeping more than 
ever. “ She has left eighteen small children entirely 
without bread, and it is I who must fill their little 
stomachs,” said Deesa, beating his head on the 
floor. 

“ Who brought you the news ? ” said the planter. 

“ The post,” said Deesa. 

“ There hasn’t been a post here for the past week. 
Get back to your lines ! ” 

“ A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, 
and all my wives are dying,” yelled Deesa, really in 
tears this time. 

u Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa’s village,” 
said the planter. “Chihun, has this man got a 
wife?” 


MOTI GUJ — MUTINEER. 


311 


“ He? ” said Chihun. “No. Not a woman of 
our village would look at him. They’d sooner mar- 
ry the elephant.” 

Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed. 

“ You will get into a difficulty in a minute,” said 
the planter. “ Go back to your work ! ” 

“ Now I will speak Heaven’s truth,” gulped Deesa, 
with an inspiration. “ I haven’t been drunk for 
two months. I desire to depart in order to get prop- 
erly drunk afar off and distant from this heavenly 
plantation. Thus I shall cause no trouble.” 

A flickering smile crossed the planter’s face. 
“ Deesa,” said he, “ you’ve spoken the truth, and I’d 
give you leave on the spot if anything could be done 
with Moti Guj while you’re away. You know that 
he will only obey your orders.” 

“ May the light of the heavens live forty thousand 
years. I shall be absent but ten little days. After 
that, upon my faith and honor and soul, I return. 
As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the gracious 
permission of the heaven-born to call up Moti Guj ? ” 

Permission was granted, and in answer to Deesa’s 
shrill yell, the mighty tusker swung out of the shade 
of a clump of trees where he had been squirting dust 
over himself till his master should return. 

“ Light of my heart, protector of the drunken, 
mountain of might, give ear ! ” said Deesa, standing 
in front of him. 

Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. 
“ I am going away,” said Deesa. 

Moti Guj’s eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as 


312 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


well as his master. One could snatch all manner of 
nice things from the road-side then. 

“ But you, you fussy old pig, must stay behind 
and work.” 

The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look 
delighted. He hated stump-hauling on the planta- 
tion. It hurt his teeth. 

“ I shall be gone for ten days, oh, delectable one! 
Hold up your near forefoot and I’ll impress the fact 
upon it, warty toad of a dried mud-puddle.” Deesa 
took a tent-peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on 
the nails. Moti Guj grunted and shuffled from foot 
to foot. 

“ Ten days,” said Deesa, “ you will work and haul 
and root the trees as Chihun here shall order you. 
Take up Chihun and set him on your neck ! ” Moti 
Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his 
foot there, and was swung on to the neck. Deesa 
handed Chiun the heavy anJcus — the iron elephant 
goad. 

Chihun thumped Moti Guj's bald head as a paver 
thumps a curbstone. 

Moti Guj trumpeted. 

“ Be still, hog of the backwoods ! Chihun’s your 
mahout for ten days. And now bid me good-by, 
beast after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my king ! 
Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, 
preserve your honored health ; be virtuous. Adieu ! ” 

Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung 
him into the air twice. That was his way of bid- 
ding him good-by. 


MOTI GUJ — MUTINEER. 


313 


“ He’ll work now,” said Heesa to the planter. 
M Have I leave to go ? ” 

The planter nodded, and Heesa dived into the 
woods. Moti Guj went back to haul stumps. 

Chiliun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy 
and forlorn for all that. Chihun gave him a ball of 
spices, and tickled him under the chin, and Chihun’s 
little baby cooed to him after work was over, and 
Chihun’s wife called him a darling ; but Moti Guj 
was a bachelor by instinct, as Heesa was. He did 
not understand the domestic emotions. He wanted 
the light of his universe back again — the drink and 
the drunken slumber, the savage beatings and the 
savage caresses. 

Hone the less he worked well, and the planter 
wondered. Heesa had wandered along the roads 
till he met a marriage procession of his own caste, 
and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted 
with it past all knowledge of the lapse of time. 

The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and 
there returned no Heesa. Moti Guj was loosed from 
his ropes for the daily stint. He swung clear, looked 
round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk 
away, as one having business elsewhere. 

“Hi! ho! Come back you!” shouted Chihun. 
“ Come back and put me on your neck, misborn 
mountain! Return, splendor of the hill-sides! 
Adornment of all India, heave to, or I’ll bang every 
toe off your fat forefoot ! ” 

Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. 
Chihun ran after him with a rope and caught him 


314 


PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 


up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun 
knew what that meant, though he tried to carry it 
off with high words. 

“ None of your nonsense with me,” said he. “ To 
your pickets, devil-son ! ” 

“ Hrrump 1 ” said Moti Guj, and that was all— 
that and the forebent ears. 

Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a 
branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clear 
ing, making fun of the other elephants who had just 
set to work. 

Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, 
who came out with a dog-whip and cracked it furi- 
ously. Moti Guj paid the white man the com- 
pliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile 
across the clearing and “ Hrrumphing ” him into \ 
his veranda. Then he stood outside the house, 
chuckling to himself and shaking all over with the 
fun of it as an elephant will. 

“ We’ll thrash him,” said the planter. w He shall 
have the finest thrashing ever elephant received. 
Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelve foot of chain 
apiece, and tell them to lay on twenty.” 

Kala Nag — which means Black Snake — and Na- 
zim were two of the biggest elephants in the lines, 
and one of their duties was to administer the graver 
punishment, since no man can beat an elephant prop' 
erly. 

They took the whipping-chains and rattled them 
in their trunks as they sidled up to Moti Guj, mean- 
ing to hustle him between them. Moti Guj had 


MOTI GUJ— -MUTINEER. 


315 


never, in all his life of thirty-nine years, been 
whipped, and he did not intend to begin a new ex- 
perience. So he waited, waving his head from 
right to left, and measuring the precise spot in Kala 
Nag’s fat side where a blunt tusk could sink deepest,, 
Kala Nag had no tusks ; the chain was the badge of 
his authority ; but for all that, he swung wide of Moti 
Guj at the last minute, and tried to appear as if he 
had brought the chain out for amusement. Nazim 
turned round and went home early. He did not 
feel fighting fit that morning and so Moti Guj was 
left standing alone with his ears cocked. 

That decided the planter to argue no more, and 
Moti Guj rolled back to his amateur inspection of 
the clearing. An elephant who will not work and 
is not tied up is about as manageable as an eighty- 
one-ton gun loose in a heavy seaway. He slapped 
old friends on the back and asked them if the 
stumps were coming away easily ; he talked non- 
sense concerning labor and the inalienable rights of 
elephants to a long “ nooning and, wandering to 
and fro, he thoroughly demoralized the garden till 
sundown, when he returned to his picket for food. 

“ If you won’t work, you shan’t eat,” said Chihun, 
angrily. “ You’re a wild elephant, and no educated 
animal at all. Go back to your jungle.” 

Chihun’s little brown baby was rolling on the 
floor of the hut, and stretching out its fat arms to 
the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti Guj knew 
well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chi 
hun. He swung out his trunk with a fascinating 


316 PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS. 

crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself, 
shouting, upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled ■ 
up till the brown baby was crowing in the air 
twelve feet above his father’s head. 

“ Great Lord !” said Chihun. “ Flour cakes of { 
the best, twelve in number, two feet across and 
soaked in rum, shall be yours on the instant, and 
two hundred pounds weight of fresh-cut young 
sugar-cane therewith. Deign only to put down 
safely that insignificant brat who is my heart and 
my life to me ! ” 

Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably 
between his forefeet, that could have knocked into ; 
toothpicks all Chihun’s hut, and waited for his food. 
He eat it, and the brown baby crawled away. Moti : 
Guj dozed and thought of Deesa. One of many 
mysteries connected with the elephant is that his 
huge body needs less sleep than anything else that 
lives. Four or five hours in the night suffice — two 
just before midnight, lying down on one side ; two 
just after one o’clock, lying down on the other. 
The rest of the silent hours are filled with eating 
and fidgeting, and long grumbling soliloquies. 

At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of 
his pickets, for a thought had come to him that 
Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in the dark 
forest with none to look after him. So all that 
night he chased through the undergrowth, blowing 
and trumpeting and shaking his ears. He went 
down to the river and blared across the shallows 
where Deesa used to wash him, but there was no 

jjD-374 

+ 


MOTI GUJ— MUTINEER. 


317 


answer. He could not find Deesa, but he disturbed 
all the other elephants in the lines, and nearly 
frightened to death some gypsies in the woods. 

At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He 
had been very drunk indeed, and he expected to get 
into trouble for outstaying his leave. He drew a 
long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the 
plantation were still uninjured, for he knew some- 
thing of Moti Guj’s temper, and reported himself 
with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to 
his pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had 
made him hungry. 

“ Call up your beast,” said the planter ; and Deesa 
shouted in the mysterious elephant language that 
some mahouts believe came from China at the birth 
of the world, when elephants and not men were 
masters. Moti Guj heard and came. Elephants do 
not gallop. They move from places at varying 
rates of speed. If an elephant wished to catch an 
express train he could not gallop, but he could catch 
the train. So Moti Guj was at the planter’s door 
almost before Chihun noticed that he had left his 
pickets. He fell into Deesa’s arms trumpeting with 
joy, and the man and beast wept and slobbered over 
each other, and handled each other from head to v 
heel to see that no harm had befallen. 

u How we will get to work,” said Deesa. 44 lift 
me up, my son and my joy ! ” 

Moti Guj swung him up, and the two went to the 
coffee-clearing to look for difficult stumps. 

The planter was too astonished to be very angry 


tub end. 
























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The Navy Boys Series 


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their relatives. They meet with numerous strange and 
thrilling perils and every wideawake boy will be pleased to 
learn how the boys finally managed to outwit their 
enemies. 

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS ALONG THE BORDER; or. 
The Hidden Treasure of the Zuni Medicine Man. 

Once more the tried and true comrades of camp and trail 
are in the saddle. In the strangest possible way they are 
drawn into a series of exciting happenings among the Zuni 
Indians. Certainly no lad will lay this book down, save 
with regret. 

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS ON THE WYOMING TRAIL; 
or, A Mystery of the Prairie Stampede. 

The three prairie pards finally find a chance to visit the 
Wyoming ranch belonging to Adrian, but managed for 
him by an unscrupulous relative. Of course, they be- 
come entangled in a maze of adventurous doings while in 
the Northern cattle country. How the Broncho Rider 
Boys carried themselves through this nerve-testing period 
makes intensely interesting reading. 

THE BRONCHO RIDER BOYS WITH THE TEXAS RAN- 
GERS; or, The Smugglers of the Rio Grande. 

In this volume, the Broncho Rider Boys get mixed up in 
the Mexican troubles, and become acquainted with General 
Villa. In their efforts to prevent smuggling across the 
border, they naturally make many enemies, but finally 
succeed in their mission. 


The B»ig| 


Five Motorcycle Boys 



By RALPH MARLOW 


Price, 40 Cents per Volume, Postpaid 


It is doubtful whether a more entertaining lot of 
boys ever before appeared in a story than the ‘ ‘ Big 
Five,” who figure in the pages of these volumes. From 
cover to cover the reader will be thrilled and delighted 
with the accounts of their many adventures. 


THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS 
ON THE BATTLE LINE; or, With 
the Allies in France. 

THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS 
AT THE FRONT: or, Carrying Dis= 
patches Through Belgium. 

THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS 
UNDER FIRE; or, With the Allies in 
the War Zone. 

THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS’ 
SWIFT ROAD CHASE; or, Surprising 
the Bank Robbers. 

THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS 
ON FLORIDA TRAILS; or, Adven* 
tures Among the Saw Palmetto 
Crackers. 

THE BIG FIVF MOTORCYCLE BOYS 
IN TENNESSEE WILDS; or. The 
Secret of Wainut Ridge. 

THE BIG FIVE MOTORCYCLE BOYS 
THROUGH BY WIRELESS; or, A 
Strange Message from the Air. 


The Boy Chums Series 

By WILMER M. ELY 


Price, 40 Cents per Volume, Postpaid 


In this series of remarkable stories are described the 
adventures of two boys in the great swamps of interior 
Florida, among the cays off the Florida coapt, and 
through the Bahama Islands. These are real, live boys, 
and their experiences are worth following. 

THE BOY CHUMS IN MYSTERY 
LAND; or, Charlie West and Walter 
Hazard among the Mexicans. 

THE BOY CHUMS ON INDIAN RIVER; 
or, The Boy Partners of the Schooner 
“Orphan.” 

THE BOY CHUMS ON HAUNTED 
ISLAND; or, Hunting for Pearls in 
the Bahama Islands. 

THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FOREST; 
or, Hunting for Plume Birds in the 
Florida Everglades. 

THE BOY CHUMS’ PERILOUS 
CRUISE; or, Searching for Wreckage 
on the Florida Coast. 

THE BOY CHUMS IN THE GULF OF 
MEXICO; or, A Dangerous Cruise 
with the Greek Spongers, 

THE' BOY CHUMS CRUISING IN 
FLORIDA WATERS; or, The Perils 
and Dangers of the Fishing Fleet. 

THE BOY CHUMS IN THE FLORIDA 
JUNGLE; or, Charlie West and Wal- 
ter Hazard with the Seminole Indians. 


The Jack Lorimer Series 

S Volumes By WINN STANDISH 

Handsomely Bound in Cloth 
Full Library Size — Price 
40 cents per Volume, postpaid 


CAPTAIN JACK LORIMER; or. The Young Athlete of 
Miilvale High. 

Jack Lorimer is a fine example of the all-around American high -school 
boy. His fondness for clean, honest 6port of all kinds will strike a chord 
of sympathy among athletic youths. 

JACK LORIMER’S CHAMPIONS; or, Sports on Land 
and Lake. 

There is a lively story woven in with the athletic achievements, which 
are all right, since the book has been O.K’d by Qiadwick, the Nestor of 
American sporting journalism. 

JACK LORIMER’S HOLIDAYS; or, Miilvale High in 
Camp. 

It would be well not to put this book into a boy's hands until the chores 
are finished, otherwise they might be neglected. 

JACK LORIMER’S SUBSTITUTE; or, The Acting Captain 
of the Team. 

On the sporting side, the book takes up football, wrestling, tobogganing. 
There is a good deal of fun in this book and plenty of action. 

JACK LORIMER, FRESHMAN; or, From Miilvale High 
to Exmouth. 

Jack and some friends he makes crowd innumerable happenings into 
an exciting freshman year at one of the leading Eastern colleges. The 
book is typical of the American college boy’s life, and there is a lively 
story, interwoven with feats on the gridiron, hockey, basketball and 
other clean, honest sports for which Jack Lorimer stands. 


Pot sale by all booksellers, or sent Dostpaid on receipt of price by the pubHshers 

A. L. BURt COMPANY, 314-120 East 23d Street, New York. 


The Camp Fire Girls Series 

By HILDEGARD G. FREY. The only series of stories 
for Camp Fire Girls endorsed by the officials of the Camp 
Fire Girls Organization. PRICE, 40 CENTS PER VOLUME 


THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS IN THE MAINE WOODS; or. 
The Winnebago* go Camping. 

This lively Camp Fire group and their Guardian go back to Nature in a 
camp in the wilds of Maine and pile up more adventures in one summer 
than they have had in all their previous vacations put together. Before 
the summer is over they have transformed Gladys, the frivolous board-* 
ing school girl, into a genuine Winnebago. 

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT SCHOOL ; or. The Woheb 
Weavers. 

ft is the custom of the Winnebagcs to weave the events of their lives 
into symbolic bead bands, instead of keeping a diary. All commenda- 
tory doings are worked out in bright colors, but every time the Law of 
of the Camp Fire is broken it must be recorded in black. How these 
seven live wire girls strive to infuse into their school life the spirit of 
Work, Health and Love and yet manage to get into more than their 
share of mischief, is told in this story. 

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS AT ONOWAY HOUSE; or. 
The Magic Garden. 

Migwan is determined (o go to cofisgs. and not being strong enough td 
work indoors earns the money by raising fruits and vegetables. The 
Winnebegos all turn a hand to help the cause along and the “goings- 
on ** at Oneway House that summer make the foundations shake with 
laughter. 

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS GO MOTORING; or. Along 
the Road That Leads the Way. 

The Winnebagoe take a thousand mile auto trip. The “ pinc hin g ” of 
Nyoda* the fire in the country inn, the runaway girl and the dead- 
earnest hare and hound chase combine to make these three weeks tire 
most exciting the Winnebagos have ever experienced. 


For sale by all booHschars. or sent postpaid oa receipt of price by the publishers 
A. L. BURT COMPANY, 1 14-120 East 23d Street, New Yarfe. 


The Blue Grass 
Seminary Girls Series 

By CAROLYN JUDSON BURNETT 

Handsome Cloth Binding Price, 40c. per Volume 

Splendid Stories of the Adventures 
or a Group of Charming Girls 

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS’ VACATION 
ADVENTURES ; or, Shirley Willing to the Rescue. 

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS’ CHRISTMAS 
HOLIDAYS; or, A Four Weeks’ Tour with the Glee 
Club. 

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS IN THE 
MOUNTAINS; or, Shirley Willing on a Mission of 
Peace. 

THE BLUE GRASS SEMINARY GIRLS ON THE 
WATER; or, Exciting Adventures on a Summer’s 
Cruise Through the Panama Canal. 


The Mildred Series 

By MARTHA FINLEY 

Handsome Cloth Binding Price, 40c. per Volume 

A Companion Series to the Famous 
“Elsie” Books by the Same Author 

MILDRED KEITH MILDRED’S MARRIED UFE 

MILDRED AT ROSELANDS MILDRED AT HOME 
MILDRED AND ELSIE MILDRED’S BOYS AND GIRLS 
MILDRED’S NEW DAUGHTER 


^ s rtf by ^i book se!lers. or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publisher* 

A. J Bl^T COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York, 


The Girl Comrade’s Series 

ALL AMERICAN AUTHORS 
ALL COPYRIGHT STORIES 


A carefully selected series of books for 
girls, written by popular authors. These 
are charming stories for young girls, well 
told and full of interest. Their simplicity, 
tenderness, healthy, interesting motives, 
vigorous action, and character painting will 
please all girl readers. 

HANDSOME CLOTH BINDING. 
PRICE, 60 CENTS. 

MAID AND HER BROTHER. By«I. T. 

A Story For Girls. By Fanny E. Newberry. 

ALMOST A GENIUS. A Story For Girls. Bv Adelaide L. 
Rouse. 

ANNICE WYNKOOP, Artist. Story of a Country Girl. 

By Adelaide L. Rouse. 

BUBBLES. A Girl’s Story. By Fannie E. Newberry. 
COMRADES. By Fannie E. Newberry. 

DEANE GIRLS, THE. A Home Story. By Adelaide L. 
Rouse. 

HELEN BEATON, COLLEGE WOMAN. By Adelaide L. 
Rouse. 

JOYCE’S INVESTMENTS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie 
E. Newberry. 

MELLICENT RAYMOND. A Story For Girls. By Fannie 
E. Newberry. 

; MISS ASHTON’S NEW PUPIL. A School Girl’s Story. 

! By Mrs. S. S. Robbins. 

NOT FOR PROFIT. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E, 

1 Newberry. 

ODD ONE, THE. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. New- 
berry. 

SARA, A PRINCESS. A Story For Girls. By Fannie E. 
Newberry. 



A BACHELOR 
Thurston. 
ALL ABOARD. 


Vor sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the 
publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY. 114-120 East 23d Street, New YorV 


The AMY E. BLANCHARD Series 

— ■■■■—I- |l !■■■ — ■■■■■■■■ ■ ■ I I — ■■■■■■ ■ I > « ■ — *f 


^VjTlSS BLANCHARD has won an enviable reputation 
| v as a writer of short stories for girls. Her books are 
thoroughly wholesome in every way and her style is full 
of charm. The titles described below will be splendid additions to 

every girl’s library. Handsomely bound in cloth), full library size. 
Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman. Price, 60 cents per volume, postpaid. 


The Glad Lady. A spirited account of a remarkably pleasant 

vacation spent in an unfrequented part of northern Spain. This summer, 
which promised at the outset to be very quiet, proved to be exactly the 
opposite. Event follows event in rapid succession and the story ends with 
the culmination of at least two happy romances. The story throughout is ' 
interwoven with vivid descriptions of real places and people of which the 
general public knows very little. These add greatly to the reader’s interest. 

Wit’s End. Instilled with' life, color and individuality, this story of ! 
true love cannot fail to attract and hold to its happy end the reader’s eager 
attention. The word pictures are masterly ; while the poise of narrative and 
description is marvellously preserved. 

A Journey of Joy. A charming story of the travels and j 

adventures of two young American girls, and an elderly companion in Europe. 
It is not only well told, but the amount of information contained will make it 
a very valuable addition to the library of any girl who anticipates making a > 
similar trip. Their many pleasant experiences end in the. culmination of two 
happy romances, all told in the happiest vein. 


Talbot’s Angles. A' charming romance of Southern life. 

Talbot’s Angles is a beautiful old estate located on the. Eastern Shore of 
Maryland. The death of the owner and the ensuing legal troubles render it 
necessary for our heroine, the present owner, to leave the place which has 
been in her family for hundreds of years and endeavor to earn her own living. 
Another claimant for the property appearing on the scene complicates matters 
still more. The untangling of this mixed-up condition of affairs makes an 
extremely Interesting story. 


For sale by all booksellers, or sent prepaid On receipt of price by the publishers 

A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23d Street, New York 




























































































































































































































































































































































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